212 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



September, 191 1 



A British Columbia Packing House, The Farmers' Exchange, Kelowna, B.C. — Notice the Chinese Packers on the Right. 



of apple packing is that of over-filling. 

 It has taken us years to discover that 

 perhaps seventy-five per cent, of our 

 apples have been damaged more or less 

 by over-pressing. The exporters having 

 the fear of "slacks" before them, hoped 

 to meet the trouble by heaping up the 

 fruit in the barrels and then crushing 

 it down, until in many cases every speci- 

 men in the barrel was either split open 

 or bruised out of shape. This method of 

 packing makes the worst form of slacks. 



The west is now taking a large per- 

 centage of our Ontario apples, and the 

 dealers are crying out against bruised 

 apples. It will be hard for the export 

 packers to get away from their old 

 habits, but the trade is now demanding 

 it. If the fruit in the barrel is well 

 settled down by thorough shaking and 

 filled level with the top of the barrel, or 

 even a little lower, it will carry safely 

 to any market where our apples are 

 offered for sale. 



Over-filling should also be avoided in 

 box packing. A bulge of from one-half 

 to three-quarters of an inch is quite 

 enough for a box of apples. Solid fill- 

 ing in box packing is the first require- 

 ment, so that there will be no falling-in 

 of the face apples when the box is 

 opened. 



QUALITY OP PACKAGES: 

 Growers should never endeavor to 

 make a saving by buying poor packages. 

 It does not pay. Fancy fruit /never looks 

 fancy in a dirty old barrel' or box ; a 

 good, well-made, clean package is to 

 the fruit what good harness is to the 

 horse or a good suit of ciothes to the 

 man. / 



Nova Scotia Growers Improve Their Methods 



G. H. Vroom, Dominion Fruit Inspector, Middleton, N. S. 



1 



A GREAT improvement has taken 

 place during the past twenty years 

 in the fruit industry in the little 

 but noted fruit-growing province of 

 Nova Scotia, down by the eastern sea. 

 The annual output 

 of apples has in- 

 creased from less 

 than fifty thousand 

 to over eight hun- 

 dred thousand bar- 

 rels. This increase 

 is attributed by most 

 people to the in- 

 creased acreage of 

 mature or beai mg 

 trees. This is only 

 G.H. Vroom. partially the case. 



Improved methods of care and cultiva- 

 tion must be taken into consideration. 

 There are orchards in Nova Scotia, pro- 

 ducing large crops of choice appir.s, 

 which were thought worthless, or nearly 

 so, twenty years ago. This has been 

 brought about by careful and proper 

 pruning, thorough spraying, and intelli- 

 gent cultivation. Thus while many thou- 

 sands of young trees have been planted 

 and have come into bearing, it is not 

 fair to say that the whole increase in pro- 

 duct is due to young trees alone. 



Spraying is practised in a great ma- 

 jority of the orchards. There still re- 

 main a few who do not believe in spray- 

 ing, but their number is rapidly growing 

 less. Every year sees new converts to 

 spraying. 



Lime and sulphur was the spray most 



generally used in the Annapolis Valley 

 this year. It proved fairly satisfactory. 

 Bordeaux has been in general use for 

 some years, and it has given general sat- 

 isfaction where it has been intelligently 

 and thoroughly applied. Experience has 

 proven that lime and sulphur does not 

 injure the fruit by russetting, and that 

 it is a good fungicide. 



FORMER METHODS. 



When a car of fruit was to be loaded 

 twenty years ago, the custom of the 

 country was to run it on a siding. The 

 apples were then drawn by teams from 

 the farmers' cellars. The operation 

 took from ten to twenty-four hours, ac- 

 cording to circumstances. 



To-day we find frost-proof fruit houses 

 all along the railway, numbering in all 

 eighty. These houses are built beside 

 the railway siding. To load a car with 

 apples is a matter of twenty minutes to 

 half an hour. In less time than it for- 

 merly took to load a car the apples are 

 now placed at the ship side on the wharf 

 at Halifax. These fruit houses have a 

 capacity varying from six to twelve 

 thousand barrels. 



COOPERATIVE METHODS SPREADING. 



One of the greatest steps in advance 

 is the organization of cooperative fruit 

 packing associations. Of these there 

 are twenty-two, about half of which own 

 their own fruit houses. Fully one-quar- 

 ter of the entire output this year will be 

 controlled by these cooperative associa- 

 tions. A central association has been 



