128 FLORIDA FRUITS ORANGES. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



GATHERING AND PACKING. 



It is a proud and happy day to the orange grower when 

 he gathers in the first golden herald of the good time com- 

 ing, and thus receives the glad assurance that the reward 

 of his years of toil and patience are close at hand that 

 the night is past, and the dawn of prosperity is near. 



It is not every one who knows how to gather and pack 

 his crop so that it will reach its distant market in good 

 order, and yet this point is so important that, if not prop- 

 erly understood, it matters not how full a crop the tree 

 may yield, since the fruit will yield no profit but rather 

 loss, for freight must be paid whether the fruit will sell 

 for enough to cover it or not. 



This matter of proper shipping is a rock on which many 

 a goodly barque, sailing out into the world with fair hopes 

 and prospects, becomes an utter wreck. And the worst 

 of it is that such shipwreck as this, at the last moment, 

 is caused almost invariably by culpable carelessness on the 

 part of the owner of the fruit, whether he does the work 

 of picking and packing with his own hands, or trusts it to 

 hired help who have no interest in the well-being of the 

 crop or its ultimate fate. 



As soon as the oranges begin to show by their yellow 

 tinge here and there that ripening has commenced, the 

 trees should be examined every two or three days, and all 

 specked or defective fruit taken off, the ripest first. This 

 serves two purposes : first, such fruit is always the earliest 

 to ripen, and if carefully handled and shipped it will pay 

 well to send it forward while the market is comparatively 

 empty ; second, the removal of such defective fruit, which 



