No. 4.] APPLES. 391 



two or three inches above the chines. This amount will be 

 taken up in pressing the head or the bottom in place. The 

 bottom is pressed in with a screw or lever press, is nailed 

 in place, and the barrel is ready for the market. 



Apple Bakrels. 



Customarily, the package for selling apples is the barrel. 

 There are various forms of barrels in use in this country, 

 the two most common ones being the hundred-quart barrel 

 and the ninety-six-quart barrel. The National Apple Ship- 

 pers' Association have adopted the barrel having the fol- 

 lowing dimensions: stave, 28|- inches; head, 11^ inches; 

 circumference in the middle, 64 inches. This is the hun- 

 dred-quart barrel. There seems to be a tendency at the 

 present time to use more of the ninety-six-quart barrels. 



The barrel market, however, in the last few j-ears has 

 been a very difficult and unsatisfactory one. The prices 

 have been abnormally high, and promise to be higher than 

 ever this season. It seems probable now that good barrels 

 cannot be had anywhere for less than 40 cents each. Under 

 these circumstances many poor barrels are being used. 

 Flour barrels are frequently employed, and are in great 

 demand. Such barrels should always be very carefully 

 cleaned out before being used. Clean, fresh, unused bar- 

 rels are always better. When handling large crops of 

 apples, it is doubtless the best practice to buy staves, hoops 

 and heads in quantities, knocked down, and have the bar- 

 rels made up on the farm by a cooper. At the present 

 prices of barrel stock no great saving can be made in this 

 way, but fresh, clean barrels are secured. 



Apple Boxes. 

 The high prices of apple barrels, taken in connection with 

 the changing conditions of our markets, have led to the ex- 

 tended use of boxes. We have experimented to a consid- 

 erable extent in the department of horticulture at the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural Colleo^e in the use of boxes for 

 apples. While we are not ready to say that boxes are bet- 

 ter than barrels, in general, we have found their use very 



