SPECIAL REPORT 25 



purple. Skin rather tough, rarely cracks or rots. Flavor sprightly, sweet. 

 Ripens after English Morello. Its season here in Oceana county, Mich., is 

 from August ist to September ist. Tree very thrifty, upright grower ; 

 begins fruiting young, but requires age to lay on profitable crops. Descrip- 

 tion furnished by Mr. Geo. A. Hawley, Hart, Mich. 



Cook's Imperial: "This cherry was originated by Mr. Steven 

 Cook, of Benton Harbor, it being a seedling of the Napoleon Bigar- 

 reau from one of the 500 pits of this variety of cherry that he planted 

 in an experimental way. It resembles the Black Tartarian in shape, flavor, 

 length of stem, and color, but is about ten days earlier in ripening, and 

 larger." (West Michigan Nurseries, Benton Harbor, Mich.) 



HARVESTING, PACKING AND MARKETING THE FRUIT 



With the majority of growers, the methods of harvesting and packing 

 the fruit have changed but little in the past few years ; the principal points of 

 importance are, care in picking the fruits with the stems on, and in not pul- 

 ling the spur off to which the stem is attached. Throw all inferior, bruised 

 or decayed fruits on the ground rather than in the basket, and thus avoid a 

 mussy lot of fruit for the packers to cull over. Have good ladders and 

 pick all the fruit you can from thence, rather than climb around in the tree 

 and break the limbs and fruit spurs. The fruit should be set in the shade 

 or taken to the packing house as soon as picked. Baskets not larger than 

 eight or ten pounds should be used in picking. The packing house should 

 have tables or frames with canvas bottoms on which to carefully lay the 

 cherries for sorting into packages. The fruit in package should be uni- 

 form throughout and tastefully faced to attract the attention of the fastidi- 

 ous, who will pay the highest market price. Two pickings are usually all 

 that are necessary to clean up the trees. 



One of the most successful Michigan growers, Mr. Benton Gebhart, 

 Hart, Oceana Co., Mich., harvests all of his cherries, both sweet and sour, 

 by spreading sheets under the trees ; the pickers then clip the fruit off with 

 scissors, leaving about a half inch stem with the fruit allowing it to drop 

 on the sheets. Mr. Gebhart is far better satisfied with this method, than 

 with the usual way, as there are no fruit spurs pulled off as in picking. The 

 pickers are well satisfied to do the work in this way. The fruit is sorted 

 from the sheets into the market packages, and Mr. Gebhart, claims he gets 

 on an average 7 5 cents more on a 1 6 quart crate of cherries with clipped 

 stems than for undipped. This leaves a clear profit of 40 cents per crate 

 over the old way in harvesting the crop. It takes from two, to two and a 

 half quarts more of clipped stem fruit to fill a 16 quart crate, than where 

 the whole stem is left on. 



To what extent the clipping of the stems is practical the writer does 

 not know, but it is a practice that is worthy of trial in all sections. 



