3" THE FRUIT GROWER'S GUIDE. 



Although the best fruit pays the best for growing, there may be a proportion of 

 second and even third-class produce from the same trees. American and Australian 

 tipple growers find that only the best sorted samples pay for exportation, and they 

 utilise the seconds and thirds for cooking, drying, or cider- making at home. Grading, 

 therefore, is imperative, for there is a market for "firsts," another for "seconds," and 

 one for "thirds." If the fruit is sent unsorted to the market it may only realise a 

 third-rate price, whereas if this fruit had been properly graded the firsts would make 

 the best price in the market, the seconds a fair price, and the thirds realise their pro- 

 portionate value ; or if the markets were fully supplied without the thirds, they could 

 be realised for cider-making, converting into jam or jelly, drying, or feeding stock. 

 It is better to do this than mix thirds with the better fruit ; indeed, it pays better to 

 throw inferior fruits away than to mix them with good. All windfallen or bruised 

 apples should be kept by themselves, and be marketed separately. 



Tack fairly even-sized fruits in one package, and have them the same throughout 

 not the best only on the top and inferior beneath. Only place one sort in a package- 

 mixing sorts is a stamp of inferiority. Brand the packages so that they can be disposed 

 of by sample, then buyers can purchase as many as they like, and, finding what they 

 buy the same all through and reliable, will come again. 



Choice apples should be packed in small packages, second quality fruit can be 

 marketed in greater bulk. Extra choice apples may be packed in boxes in layers, other 

 best fruit in flat baskets with lids (Fig. 7-t, A), or round ones without lids (Fig. 74, B). 

 Common sorts can be offered in the prevailing package of the market to which the fruit 

 is sent. Pots, holding from 84 to 112 pounds, are mostly used in the West of England ; 

 in the northern provincial large towns, as Manchester, Sheffield, and others, apples are 

 sold by the stone of 14 pounds, and it is not important whether they are packed in boxes 

 or baskets, provided they are easily lifted by one or two men. Those for London 

 markets are usually packed in "sieves" holding about 1 bushel. (When a half-sieve 

 is mentioned it signifies half-bushel, and a sieve 1 bushel.) These baskets are round, 

 and when filled with apples appear as in the engraving (Fig. 74, B). Salesmen supply 

 them in some cases, and in others the growers find their own. The sides of the baskets 

 should be lined with clean paper, called "fruit paper," costing about Is. 6d. to 3s. per 

 ream for whitey-brown, and 3s. 6d. for blue paper. It ought to stand over the sides 

 sufficiently for folding over the fruit. Some clean straw or coarse hay is placed over 

 the papi-r, the whole secured by two sticks a hazel about as thick as the thumb split 



