The Gmadian Hgrticulturii 



Vol. XXXI 



SEPTEMBER, 1908 



No. 9 



The Picking, Packing and Marketing of Fruit 



Toronto 



ONE would think that after half a 

 century had passed in practical 

 experience along the line of pick- 

 ing, packing and marketing of fruit, 

 that little remained to be said that would 

 be of any great value to operators. Vol- 

 umes have been written along education- 

 al lines, addresses by the thousands have 

 been delivered bearing on the subject, 

 millions of packages have been market- 

 ed and every conceivable method has 

 been practised. There have been object 

 lessons in every form. Experiment aft- 

 er experiment has been tried. Opera- 

 tors, some of whom have been in the 

 Ijusiness for upwards of thirty years, 

 have had an opportunity of profiting from 

 past experience. One would naturally 

 think, therefore, that the subject "Pick- 

 ing, Packing and Marketing of Fruit" 

 i^ould be worn threadbare. But it would 

 feeem that there is much yet to be learned 

 By the growers and handlers of fruit in 

 ^rder that their operations may prove 

 uccessful. \The question then we must 

 Jsk ourselves is: "Wherein does the 

 rouble lie?"— and if we are fortunate 

 "enough to trace it to its proper source, 

 then apply the remedy. 



Why is it that fruit handling has prov- 

 en to be such a problem? Is it because 

 there are insurmountable difficulties and 

 conditions standing in the way of its 

 successful carrying out, or is it because 

 of the indifference and bad judgment of 

 the operators? As I have no desire to 

 be unfair in my criticism of those who 

 are engaged in the trade, I am ready 

 to admit that there are more conditions 

 surrounding the fruit trade in all its 

 branches than in all other trades along 

 agricultural lines combined. While this 

 is true, and while it calls for the closest 

 possible care and attention, I am pre- 

 pared to show that there is no trade in 

 Canada in the handling of which can be 

 shown the same indifference and bad 

 judgment or a greater lack of good 

 methods. I know that the difference be- 

 tween its being well and poorly handled 

 is the difference between success and fail- 

 ure. 



When is the proper time to pick? This 

 is a debatable question. There is one 



• A(lapto<l from n.lf! — .i.iu t.'.I nl Fniil Inuti- 



iute la«t wiiiUr. 



J. Caircy, Dominion Fruit Inspector 



general rule, however, on which there 

 can be no debate, and that is that every 

 variety should be at least fairly well- 

 matured and showing at least a fair share 

 of color, character and finish, before be- 

 ing plucked from the tree. It is a well 

 known fact that thousands of barrels 

 of our apples are hurried off to the mar- 

 ket at such a stage of immaturity that, 

 if one were not guided by the name of 

 the variety on the package, even an ex- 

 pert would be puzzled in some cases to 

 name the variety. 



WHEN TO PICK 



It is the picking of our winter apples 

 at the proper time in which there is so 

 much involved. We had a striking ob- 

 ject lesson last season. Thousands of 

 barrels of our best fruit were damaged 



Deserves Support 



The Can.adian Horticulturist 

 is a credit to the publishers and 

 deserves the support of every 

 householder in the country. I 

 sincerely hope that its circulation 

 may be doubled each year until it 

 may be found in the home of every 

 respectable family in Canada. — 

 Thos. Beall, Lindsay, Ont. 



on the trees by frost. This frosted 

 fruit went forward, some of it in a very 

 bad condition. In my judgment this was 

 partly, if not largely, the cause of the 

 bad condition of the market. The frost 

 came on the 20th of last October. 



Now, the question is : Should our win- 

 ter apples be picked before that date?" 

 A learned judge, in giving judgment last 

 season at Shannonville, in a case where 

 frozen apples were in question, remark- 

 ed that the Lord had sent the frost and 

 we should not question what he had sent. 

 Of course we all agree with him, but 

 could we not agree with him and, at the 

 same time, save our apples from frost? 



HARVESTING WINTER APPLES 



I am going to take strong ground here 

 as to the proper time to pick our winter 

 apples. The period for harvesting of 

 our winter apples is, and has been, too 

 long. I hold that this period should 

 not extend ovor more than three weeks. 



181 



When the end of that three weeks should 

 be, is a debatable question ; but from 

 past experience, it would seem that 

 there is grave danger of damage from 

 frost when fruit is left on trees later 

 than the 20th of October. 



The dealers will say with one voice 

 that this is impossible. Of course it is 

 under the present methods. When a sin- 

 gle buyer will purchase 20,000, and often 

 30,000 barrels, a part of September, all 

 of October, and often a part of Novem- 

 ber is consumed in picking winter apples 

 off the trees. There is something radi- 

 cally wrong with this system. Each year 

 there are thousands of barrels picked im- 

 maturely on the one hand, and on the 

 other hand, there are thousands of bar- 

 rels left to wind and frost to be gathered 

 up and marketed in some way. 



There is but one way to carry out 

 what I contend — namely ; that the pick- 

 ing period should not extend longer than 

 three weeks — and that is that the grow- 

 ers must pick their own apples. I care 

 not how they sell their fruit or whether 

 they pack for sale or not. It is impossi- 

 ble to harvest our fruit properly and in 

 season any other way ; all other ways 

 have been tried and found wanting. 



PACKING 



Packing the fruit is, perhaps, the most 

 responsible part of the whole proposition. 

 What constitutes a good packer? Ten 

 years ago a good packer was a man that 

 could take two-thirds of a barrel of poor 

 apples and one-third good, and turn out a 

 barrel of choice XXX Canadian apples. 

 A good packer to-day is a man who, if 

 he finds there are no No. i apples, in 

 the orchard, will put them up as No. 2. 

 (all that are fit for that grade), and do 

 his work well and as rapid as possible. 



It is in the packing after all that the 

 whole trouble is centred. No matter 

 how good the intention of those who 

 direct the work and have their money 

 invested, they are forced to employ all 

 classes of men, in respect to some of 

 whom, to say that they are careless 

 and unscrupulous, would be using mild 

 expressions. Those who employ the lat- 

 ter class are certainly "in the hands of 

 the Philistines." 



One of the common faults of packers 

 is that, when they enter an orchard or 



