PICKING, PACKING AND MARKETING APPLES. 



'HE h'lg end of labor and expense that 

 goes into an apple crop is incurred 

 in the pickings, storing and market- 

 ^pJ ing^. Picking apples is, or should 

 be. a " hurry-up " job. Every tree in the or- 

 chard of the same variety is ready to pick at 

 the same moment, and should be picked the 

 moment it is ready. Every hour that the 

 picking of an apple is delayed after its clock 

 has struck brings deterioration. In an or- 

 chard of one tree it is easy to accommodate 

 the harvest to the requirements of the crop. 

 But where apple people have several hun- 

 dreds or thousands of barrels of one variety 

 it is both difficult and unprofitable to prac- 

 tice such dispatch. For even if we assume, 

 like a political economist, that labor is a sort 

 of fluid to be turned off or on at will, the 

 equipment for apple picking, the ladders, 

 picking sacks, baskets, sorting tables, bar- 

 rel presses, and all that, become an intoler- 

 able expense where they are provided in such 

 abimdance that a day or two's use in a year 

 is all that is required of them. Most apple 

 growers allow from two to four weeks for 

 the apple picking. It has been reported 

 that in 1897 the yield of one of the large or- 

 chards of Missouri was i 20 carloads of ap- 

 ples, and that they were all gathered and 

 either shipped or put in store in ten days. 



Such expedition can only come with fine 

 generalship and a perfect system of pro- 

 cedure. 



There are different systems of picking, 

 and there is much picking without system. 

 The system followed grows in interest and 

 importance as the number of people engaged 

 is increased. When the " old man " works 

 alone it is no great matter how he proceeds, 

 but when the force is 100 or even a dozen 

 hands the question of profit or loss may 

 hinge upon whether that force works with 

 the precision of an army or the discursive- 

 ness of a mob. 



Some careful operators pick into baskets, 

 and in turn hand the baskets thus filled to 

 the packing-house or place of storage. But 

 in the main apples are picked into seamless 

 grain sacks prepared for the purpose, with 

 a heavy wire sewn in the sack mouth for the 

 purpose of holding it always open. Before 

 this wire is put into place in the mouth of 

 the sack, a ring an inch or so in diameter is 

 bent into it. This ring is for the purpose of 

 engaging a harness snap attached to a short 

 rope or strap, the same being tied to one 

 corner of the closed end of the sack, the 

 purpose of it all being to provide a thing by 

 which the picking sack can be suspended 

 from the shoulder and expeditiously unslung 



