MEN WHO HAVE SUCCEEDED. 



371 



stand the packers, who take peaches from 

 the trays and carefully pack the six baskets 

 in one, each crate solidly full. Each grade 

 requires a particular style of pack to get all 

 the baskets rounding and full every time. 

 Several expert instructors in packing work 

 up and down the line constantly watching 

 the work, and when the package is complete 

 the packer's number is put on the crate label 

 and on a ticket on top. A helper supplies a 

 new crate and takes the full one to the nail- 

 ing table, where it passes final inspection, 

 and if not perfect in every way is sent back 

 for re-packing. Every hour through the 

 day the tickets are taken to the office and a 

 record made of all picking, sorting and 

 packing, so that at all times the superinten- 

 dent and myself can know just how things 

 are moving, and what each individual is 

 doing. 



As soon as covers are nailed on the crates 

 they are rushed into the refrigerator car 

 waiting alongside, and 560 or more crates 

 that go in a car are so spaced that there is a 

 circulation of cold air about each one at all 

 times in transit. These cars are " iced up " 

 twelve to twenty-four hours before loading 

 begins. The warm fruit starts the ice to 

 melting fast, and in a few hours when the 

 fruit is cold, from two to three tons more ice 

 are required to fill the bunkers. In the fifty 

 hours running time to New York the cars 

 are re-iced three times, and those going to 

 New England points once again at Jersey 

 City. 



Bad weather in harvesting, a neglect to 

 re-ice a car in transit, arrival at unseason- 

 able hours, bad weather or an over-crowded 

 market on the day of sale — any of these may 

 cause the fruit to sell far below the actual 



cost of putting up and delivering, to say 

 nothing of cost of production. 



We have loaded as many as thirteen cars 

 in a single day, and ten a day for eight days 

 in succession. There are about thirty 

 peaches to the average basket, six baskets 

 to a crate, five hundred and sixty crates to 

 a car, making for a day producing ten car- 

 loads practically 1,000,000 peaches, each of 

 which is handled three times in the operation 



Fig. 2389. Packing Peaches. 



each day, besides all the other work inciden- 

 tal to such extended packing. 



The packing shed is a cool airy place, 

 comfortable at all times in the hottest 

 weather, yet the days are long and busy 

 and noting that the workers were tired and 

 languid by night, four years ago I tried a 

 plan of resting them with music. A good 

 string band of six pieces was hired to play 

 each afternoon from two o'clock until dark 

 or until all the work was finished. There 

 was soft, quiet music for an hour or two, 

 and then quick lively airs until the finish, 

 music all the time. 



