-3- 



A HODEICT V/ITCHES ' BREW 



The fruit grower of the future may have in his vraod shed a shelf 

 on which will be a collection of bottles containing various brews from v^ich 

 he v/ill select the proper ones and spray them on his trees; Then he will be 

 free to attend the dog races (?) until harvest time, when he will come home 

 and harvest a big crop Df perfect, red apples which he will sell at $10.00 

 per box, and then be in a position to replenish his supply of magic concoc- 

 tions and resume his life of ease and enjoyment. 



This may be a bit exaggerated, but hovif is this for a starter? — A 

 material . which promises to accomplish all of these things; (1) serve as a 

 blossom thinning spray, (2) prevent excessive fruit bud formation, (3) delay 

 blossoming until after frost danger has passed and extend the harvest period 

 of Mcintosh, (4) prevent premature drop of the fruit, (5) solve the green 

 Mcintosh problem by turning the apples yellow in two weeks' time, and (5) 

 serve as a killer of unwanted weeds. These varied effects are brought about 

 by varying the concentration and time of application. This, too, may be a 

 wee bit stretched, but all these varied uses are within the realm of possi- 

 bility. You will hear more of this story in the near future. 



— J. K. Shaw 



PICKIIIG FRUIT (Some general suggestions from work simplification studies) 



1. Arrange the job so that both hands can work. Equal use of both hands 

 usually increases output by about 4:0% over using one hand alone. 



2« Keep both hands together for greater hand-eye coordination. The eyes 

 cannot direct both hands if the hands reach out in opposite directions. 



3. Fill the hajids full ''^fore moving them to the container. On hand har- 

 vest jobs as much as 70^ of the picking time is spent in moving (trans-, 

 porting) the fruit from the tree to the picking container. By getting 

 the hands as full as possible, this transport time is reduced. 



4. Keep picking container - basket, bag or pail - as near the hands as 

 possible. By keeping the container conveniently located with respect 

 to the hands, transport time and extra steps can be reduced. 



6. Use a picking container adapted to the job. For apple picking, a light- 

 weight picking bucket of full-box capacity attached to the worker with 

 comfortable harness speeds up the job and makes it easier. 



6. Approach any hand harvest job in an orderly fashion. ViHien picking fruit 

 (apples, peaches) from the ground, pick the highest fruit first so that 

 the decreasing weight on the branches will not cause the fruit to spring 

 out of reach. Size up a tree before setting the ladder to pick the tree 

 with a minimum number of ladder moves. 



7. Simplify the task of removing the harvested crop from the field. Have 

 adequate field roads. Y/here possible, locate the boxes at frequent in- 

 tervals so that the filled picking containers do not have to be carried 

 long distances. 



