GATHERING CROP FROM THE COMMERCIAL ORCHARD. 299 



the full ones to the chute, which is set at some good place near the 

 center of the orchard. 



A platform wide enough to hold two rows of barrels is better 

 than a box. There should be a two inch piece around the edge of 

 platform to keep the barrels from sliding off. 



A packing crew consists of four or five men, and it will take 

 four to six pickers to keep them going, according to how thick the 

 apples are and how close they are sorted, fifty bushels being about 

 an average day's work for each picker. 



We find that women and girls make good pickers for the lower 

 branches ; for getting up on the ladders, and especially around in the 

 tops of trees, we have boys and young men, as they do not break 

 the branches as much as heavier men. The pickers are instructed 

 to handle the fruit as carefully as possible, as any bruised specimens 

 are not taken as No. I. The pickers empty the apples into the bar- 

 rels very carefully, putting the basket down in the barrel before 

 turning out the fruit. 



Sometimes the pickers carry the apples to the sorting chute. 

 If so, they usually take eight rows, setting the chute in the center 

 of a square containing sixty-four trees, thus doing away with the 

 team and two men ; but the team is much to be preferred, as there is 

 always "more or less time wasted in changing the chute from one 

 location to another. 



In conclusion will say that it will keep a man busy to look after 

 a crew of this size, as careless pickers will leave considerable fruit, 

 or bruise it so it will not go for No. I ; besides they sometimes break 

 branches off the trees unless closely watched. 



Mr. C. L. Blair : I have had some little experience in packing 

 fruit. My method may not be the best, but from my experience this 

 method suits me better than any I have tried. I hire, for instance, 

 five or six girls, and instead of using baskets I use sacks that hold 

 a half bushel. A girl can put one of these sacks over her shoulder 

 and get on her stepladder to pick, and if there are any apples that are 

 not perfect they are put in baskets, that I call No. 2, and which I 

 sell at home. I set my station in the most shady place in the or- 

 chard, to which place the girls bring their baskets, and then I have 

 a man there to head up the barrels. The bottom of the barrel is faced, 

 and all the apples are put in carefully, so they will not be bruised. 

 By this method four or five girls will pick as fast as a man can 

 head up the barrels, and we generally get from twenty-five to thirty 

 barrels headed up with five girls and one man working. In that 

 way it is not very expensive. That makes two loads a day to take 

 over to the depot. About 180 barrels a week is what we get off. 

 I find it is not very expensive to handle fruit in that way. We use 

 a stepladder, a style of ladder that stands twenty-two feet high, and 

 there is now and then a girl that will climb to the top of any ladder. 



