Marketing 



THE big profits in growing fruit depend upon the manner in 

 which fruit is harvested and marketed, more than upon any 

 other element. Picking, grading, packing and selling really 

 constitute one operation, since all help toward one object the 

 placing of the fruit in the hands of the users in the best possible 

 condition. While the average grower has much to learn about 

 varieties, feeding, pruning, spraying, and other care, he must 

 count his work a failure unless he knows also how to get the 

 money for his fine fruit. 



Fruit should be picked at exactly the right time. A good 

 way to tell when to pick most fruits is to lift them up gently 

 if they are ready to pick, they will come from the spur easily 

 when you give them a little twist. Unless there is a tree trouble, 

 or unless a variety is out of its latitude, this is a reliable guide 

 for apples. Pears sometimes should be picked when they are 

 a little greener. The softer varieties, like Bartlett and Seckel, 

 especially, should come off a week before they take on their 

 full colors. Peaches, plums, cherries and grapes are best when 

 picked at the stage when they have colored-up well, but still 

 are firm and hard. This is for shipping or keeping. For im- 

 mediate home use, let all fruits except quinces mellow on the 

 trees. In no other way can they get such flavor as is given by 

 the sun and the wind. 



Be sure to leave the stems on all fruit except peaches and 

 some plums. Apples from which twenty per cent of the stems 

 are missing will be objected to on the best markets. Cherries 

 and plums will not keep without stems. (But cherry stems 

 ought to be clipped with shears after picking, leaving from a 

 quarter to a half-inch only on the fruit.) With any kind of 

 fruit, these stems come from a fruit spur, and from only one 

 of several fruit buds. If you leave that spur and the buds 

 undamaged, they will set fruit again next year. To break the 

 spur or any of the buds means that you are deliberately killing 

 a half-dozen fruits of the next two or three years' crop. See 

 a detailed explanation of this in the chapters on thinning and 

 pruning. 



Use baskets, rather than bags, to pick in, either of wood or 

 canvas. The wood ones generally are best. Get those with 

 the hinged handles that will enable you to empty the fruit 

 out without dropping it an inch. Baskets that are open at the 

 bottom are to be had on the market, and are very good. You 

 can have a blacksmith make hooks with which the basket 

 can be hung at the side of the ladder or to a limb, where 

 both hands can reach it, or a strong hook made in the shape 

 of an "A" will hold two baskets. If trees are high, have a 

 rope and pulley with which a helper on the ground can lower 

 the baskets while the picker works. Fruit in bags will be bruised 

 when pickers climb over ladders and limbs. Employ men who 

 will pick with both hands the one-handed picker is closely 

 related to the one-handed milker. Better stop picking during 



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