HOW TO GROW AND MARKET FRUIT 



diameter at the head, inside; the staves are twenty-eight and 

 a half inches long, the chimes three-fourths of an inch deep, 

 and the barrel at the bulge is sixty-four inches in circumference, 

 or about twenty-one inches in diameter. The capacity should 

 be as near as possible ninety-six quarts three bushels. 



Packing in barrels needs little explanation. Make at least 

 two grades of apples, and it is better to make four or five. Face 

 three layers with the stems down in the bottom, then put fruit 

 in to fill up, either by pouring and shaking, or by placing each 

 apple by hand. The latter is best. Face three rows on top 

 with the stems up. Put the same size and color of fruit all the 

 way through the barrel. The top layer should come an inch or 

 two above the top of the staves. Then put the lid on top of 

 these and force it into place with a press, or pole. Screw and 

 lever presses are both good; the latter is the handiest, especially 

 the kind that locks the pressure on while you nail in the head. 

 The hard, unyielding sorts of apples should be squeezed less 

 than softer ones. Thus Spies will stand only an inch or so, 

 while Greenings should go down at least two inches. Do not 

 leave them loose in the barrel, yet do not squeeze them too 

 much. Some packers use a lace-paper circle under head of the 

 finer grades. It always is a good plan to line the barrels with 

 paper, and to use a pad on the top and bottom, inside. This 

 pad may be of corrugated board, but the best ones are made of 

 excelsior. The packing-pad should be thick enough to prevent 

 bruising, yet not so thick as to make a slack barrel. When 

 apples are stored in barrels, then sold without repacking, they 

 should have a double-thick "winter" pad put under the head 

 when taken out of storage. 



With hampers and baskets, grading should be the same, but 

 there is little packing to do. Simply pour them in gently. A 

 few growers face the top layer and use a corrugated board under 

 the lid. The lids cannot squeeze the apples much. Hampers go 

 to consumer with the minimum of rough handling, yet this is 

 a style of packing that is not good for shipping more than two 

 or three hundred miles, nor for other than early apples. 



"Take-home" baskets are another thing. They are used with 

 all fruit. The idea is to get a package that is attractive, strong 

 enough to be useful afterward, and of a size that will hold 

 enough fruit to be sold at retail for a quarter- or a half-dollar 

 enough for one family a day or a meal. Such baskets can be 

 packed in the orchard and shipped to the cities in big crates, 

 which keep the baskets from shifting and the fruit from shift- 

 ing in the baskets. Only the finest fruit, carefully graded, should 

 be used. 



The standard boxes are ten by eleven by twenty inches, and 

 the "specials" are ten and a half by eleven and a half by eigh- 

 teen. The first is used three-fourths of the time. The two 

 sizes are needed to accommodate different sizes of apples or 

 pears, but no others should be used. These sizes contain a 

 little less than a bushel, when level full, but the necessary 

 bulge makes their capacity more than a bushel. In them, 

 however, fruit is not sold by the bushel, but by the number of apples 



126 



