CHAPTER XVII 

 PICKING AND PACKING THE FRUIT 



In the foregoing chapters the discussions have had to do 

 with the planting and maintenance of peach orchards; in 

 other words, with production problems. Attention is now 

 directed to the operations which are concerned with the pick- 

 ing of the fruit and its preparation for market. These 

 operations, together with those connected with the trans- 

 portation and marketing features, are all-important. They 

 represent the culmination of the peach-grower's efforts for 

 the season. The activities incident to growing the fruit 

 extend over a period of months. On the other hand, the 

 picking and marketing operations, in many sections at least, 

 are over within a period of a few weeks. It is during this 

 relatively short space of time that the peach-grower reaps 

 the reward of his labor. 



Moreover, many excellent crops of fruit are grown and 

 brought in perfection to maturity and then are lost, wholly 

 or in part, to the grower because he fails in some of the 

 essential features of marketing. Not every good grower is 

 an equally good salesman of fruit. It is in part for this 

 reason that the average grower is fortunate if he can market 

 his fruit through some sort of cooperative association whose 

 manager is skillfully trained in the requirements of marketing 



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