PACKING AND MARKETING FRUITS 61 



Delaware does. But any variety should be thor- 

 oughly ripened on the vines. Unripe grapes do not 

 ship nor keep any better than those fairly well 

 ripened, and they certainly are not so well received 

 by customers. One of the best ways of reducing the 

 demand for grapes is to send them to market green 

 and sour. In the northeastern states it is not uncom- 

 mon to allow the fruit to hang on the vines after the 

 leaves have fallen, thus securing ripe grapes when 

 earlier picking would yield only sour and unpala- 

 table fruit. 



The fruit is picked with small scissors or pruning 

 shears made for the purpose. These should be both 

 small and strong. The scissors used for thinning out 

 bunches are not very good for picking. In the field 

 the grapes are picked into any convenient receptacle. 

 Usually the best thing is the half bushel picking bas- 

 ket used for apples. In our own work we pick grapes 

 into large shallow trays which nest up one above, 

 another, leaving a shallow air space between. These 

 trays are carried with the grapes in them into the 

 cooling room. The fruit remains in these trays from 

 one to ten days, until it is sorted and packed for 

 market. This method is used only on a compara- 

 tively small scale and for a local market. 



Usually the baskets as picked in the field are de- 

 livered promptly to the packing house. Here the 

 fruit is spread out on a narrow table before the 

 sorters and packers (usually girls and women), by 

 whom it is picked over and packed. All decayed, 

 green and defective berries are cut out with sharp- 

 pointed scissors, and the bunches are deftly and 

 snugly stowed in the baskets. 



The package which is almost universally used for 

 grapes is the Climax basket. These are made in 

 various sizes, the most popular being 3-lb., 5-lb., 8-lb. 



