370 



ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 



These things, then, have been factors 

 toward the establishing of growers' as- 

 sociations, not the least function of which 

 is to maintain the standards of grade and 

 pack. The methods by which the associa- 

 tions have gone about accomplishing this 

 end have been, generally speaking, two, 

 inspection and direct management. In- 

 spection, when it takes the exclusive form 

 of examination of the product after it 

 is packed ready for market, is rarely an 

 entire success, being a corrective rather 

 than a preventive measure. Where the 

 Inspector visits the packing house of the 

 various growers, examining the sorted 

 apples before they are packed and giving 

 instructions where necessary, the case is 

 a step in advance. Although here the 

 workers are responsible to the grower, 

 and after the inspector leaves may re- 

 ceive conflicting orders from their em- 

 ployer. The best system for securing the 

 desired result is now conceded to be one 

 in which the selling agency takes entire 

 charge of gradin,g and packing the fruit, 

 the workers being responsible only to the 

 agency. This system is carried on under 

 two forms, one where the fruit is graded 

 and packed in the packing house of the 

 grower, but with a foreman and crew em- 

 ployed and furnished by the dealer or as- 

 sociation (perhaps the grower not being 



allowed even to help in the work), the 

 other where the work is done in the ware- 

 house of the agency, or in a building built 

 and equipped by it especially for use as 

 a packing house, and with a force like- 

 wise responsible only to the management 

 of the agency. An example of an associa- 

 tion operating successfully under the first 

 form is the Hood River Apple Growers' 

 Union, of Hood River, Oregon; an exam- 

 ple of one operating under the second 

 form, the North Fork Fruit Growers' As- 

 sociation of Paonia, Colorado. This lat- 

 ter maintains several packing plants con- 

 veniently located throughout the district, 

 also temporary camps for accommo- 

 dating the employees. Several associa- 

 tions throughout the Northwest practice 

 more than one system, maintaining a 

 packing department for the benefit of 

 those who for any reason do not wish to 

 pack at their orchards. The central pack- 

 ing house is especially adapted to a com- 

 munity of small orchards, where none of 

 the growers can afford singly an adequate 

 house and system for handling the crop. 



The object sought in the management of 

 the packing house, whether private or co- 

 operative, is a perfect product at a mini- 

 mum cost. A most important, though 

 difflcult, fact which the apple growers of 

 the Northwest have had to learn, is that 



Fig. .39. Peai- Tack, 



— Courtcsn lioiiuv River \'iilhii Fruit Oroirirs' Inion. 



