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A Member. I would like to ask if they are sorted as 

 they are taken from the trees, or put in piles and then sort- 

 ed? 



Mr. Castner. No, we don't put them in piles. Every 

 apple is picked and handled as though it were an egg. We 

 require all the pickers to wear cotton gloves. If we did not 

 there would be danger from the handling. You see a man 

 go up to an apple and take his finger and poke it, and to do 

 away with that we require them to use cotton gloves; that 

 stops it or does away with a good deal of it. They are 

 picked in half bushel baskets. We have tried picking bas- 

 kets, buckets, and use in some cases some that have canvass 

 bottoms that you can open and let the apples drop in the box 

 and they are all right provided the pickers will be careful 

 to put them near the bottom of the box when they open that 

 canvass bottom; but a good many come up to the box and 

 open it up and let them go. 



I hire expert packers to do my sorting. The pickers 

 pick them in half bushel baskets, take them to the experts 

 / iand they do the sorting. Every grade and size and qual- 

 ' ity is sorted by these experts. 



A Member. How many grades? 



Mr. Castner. Three : extra fancy, fancy and choice. A 

 man will have probably ten or twelve boxes around him ; he 

 puts two sizes in a box. The sizes are very similar and very 

 close together. We don't ask a packer to pack over thirty 

 ^r thirty-five boxes a day, and he must pack them right. 



Mr. Henry. How big are the boxes ? 



Mr. Castner, A bushel. 



Mr. Henry. And he does thirty-five a day? 



Mr. Castner. All we require. 



Mr. Henry. In ten hours? 



Mr. Castner, In picking time you can't work much over 

 nine hours. 



A Member. Do you use sorting machines ? 



Mr. Castner. No, we use no machines at all. One came 

 into the valley last year while I was east, but I don't know 

 what the result was. Mr. Marshall at Fitchburg had one 

 and while it did considerable saving, it isn't what it should 

 b.e yet. I understand they have a new pattern of the same 

 machine which does better sorting. The trouble with ap- 

 ples is that in the sorting you can't sort them as you can an. 



