The Number of Grades. 405 



Ben Davis apples just opened, in which the different 

 specimens are of uniform size and quality. 



Essentially these same remarks may be applied to 

 other kinds of fruits. It should be remembered 

 that the more personal and local the market, the 

 more exacting that market is, and therefore the 

 greater attention should be paid to the details of 

 sorting and grading. It should be especially im- 

 pressed upon the horticulturist that uniformity in 

 size is quite as important to a package of fruits as 

 excellence in intrinsic quality of the individual speci- 

 mens. The reader will also recall that the proper 

 grading of fruit is greatly facilitated by thinning the 

 fruits on the trees, a subject which has received 

 specific treatment in Chapter VI. It would seem to 

 be unnecessary to add that the mechanical sorters 

 now recommended in some quarters are wholly un- 

 adapted to use for any but the rougher and cheaper 

 qualities of fruits and for potatoes. High quality 

 apples which come through the sorter apparently 

 without blemish usually show discolored spots in a 

 few days, and softer fruits are often ruined. 



It 'is evident, therefore, that if fruit is sorted, two 

 grades will result, the first-class grade and the re- 

 mainder. In small -fruits, these two grades known 

 as the firsts and the seconds usually comprise the 

 entire crop, and the same may be true of tree fruits 

 which have been well grown and rigorously thinned. 

 In most cases, however, tree fruits are made into 

 three grades, the third grade being generally known 

 as culls. Persons who sort their fruit as carefully 



