462 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



Fig. 2678. Ready for SHiPMhN . 



diate shipment. The manager at the head 

 office, who has the orders before him, and 

 also accurate information as to the resourcas 

 for the day, is thus placed in a position '.0 

 direct shipments in accordance with the 

 available supply. 



A visit to one of the packing houses in a 

 village a few miles distant from Paris 

 proved exceedingly interesting and enter- 

 taining. We were first shown the process 

 of grading and packing the pears as they ar- 

 rived from the grower in large straw-lined 

 hampers. Women are employed to sort the 

 pears according to size, at the same time re- 

 jecting every defective specimen. A few 

 days' practice with measuring rings enables 

 the graders to distinguish accurately the 

 diameter of the fruit to within a quarter of 

 an inch. In practice, the measuring rings 

 •are seldom or never used after the first week. 

 The pears when graded are placed on a can- 

 vas covered bench, each size by itself. Here 

 a different set of workers is engaged *n 

 packing the fruit into slatted crates, as 

 shown in the illustration. Fig. 2676. Each 

 packer handles only one size of fruit, and 

 every crate put up by her must contain the 

 same number of specimens and must be well 

 filled. The operator stands in the angle 

 formed by the bench and the stand on which 



her crate is placed, and faces the latter. The 

 crate is lined on all four sides with paper, 

 which hangs over the sides and the back, 

 where the lid, with its hinges of cord, hangs 

 straight down. The first operation is to 

 place a layer of excelsior in the bottom of 

 the* crate ; this is covered with a sheet of 

 newspaper, and the crate is ready for its first 

 layer of fruit, which is placed evenly, with 

 the stems all one way, as shown in Fig. 2677. 

 Over the fruit a sheet of newspaper is 

 p'aced, followed by a fairly thick mit of ex- 

 celsior and another newspaper. A second 

 layer of fruit is followed by newspaper and 

 excelsior, after which the overhanging news- 

 papers are folded across the package, which 

 is then handed to a man to be closed. 

 , It requires considerable muscle to draw 

 the cover tightly over the bulging excelsior 

 and fasten it securely. 



The next operation is the marking, for 

 which this firm employs a code something 

 like that of telegraphy. For example, three 

 dots indicate " No. i Bartlett " ; two dots, 

 " No. 2 " ; three dashes, " No. i Duchess," 

 and so on ; the color is varied to show the 



Fig. 2679. Peasant Fruit Growers. 



