900 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY IK NEW YORK STATE 



Another type of packing house well adapted to the packing of 

 fruit with a mechanical grader is shown in the accompanying 

 cuts and diagrams. The special feature to be observed in its 

 construction is the provision of a clear, bright light over the grader 

 and convenient facilities for delivering the fruit to the grading 

 machine. 



The building shown in the cut was used especially for pack- 

 ing peaches with the details of construction adapted to a peach- 

 grading machine, but these could easily be changed to suit the 

 type of apple grader to be used, and even now apples are graded 

 to some extent in this house. 



METHODS OF HANDLING FRUIT 



The apples are hauled on wagons with springs, or on hay racks 

 containing a quantity of straw, to packing houses at various dis- 

 tances up to eight miles. The estimated cost of such hauling 

 being about five cents a barrel for a three-mile haul. 



The grower receives a receipt for the number of barrels he 

 delivers. The apples are stored, each barrel bearing the grower's 

 name or number and the variety. Later they are packed, generally 

 just preceding shipment, by a gang of expert packers who have 

 no knowledge of whose apples they are packing. In this manner 

 the fruit of all the growers delivering to the packing house is 

 standardized and bears the same label. After packing, the grower 

 receives a statement from the packing house manager as to the 

 number of barrels and the grades that packed out. In cooperative 

 associations no credit is given for culls. Those found in packing 

 are sold, and the receipts are credited to the general packing ex- 

 pense. The expense of packing is then prorated according to the 

 number of barrels delivered to the Central Packing House, and 

 not according to the number of barrels that pack out, this ar- 

 rangement being made in order to minimize the handling of culls 

 and the delivery of .slack barrels. 



The grading and packing in these houses is generally done with- 

 out mechanical graders on a padded sorting table, from which the 

 apples are packed into baskets and then put into barrels. The 

 packers generally work in gangs of six or seven men, a foreman, 

 two sorters, a man to face the barrels, one to rack down and head 



