How to PacK Apples in Boxes^ 



THE basis of rapid box packing is 

 good, even grading. The packer 

 should have before him an even 

 run in point of size, without which it 

 will be impossible for him to do rapid 

 work, or indeed do good work. Grading 

 for quick, good work in box packing is. 



Nailing Bench, Easily Made with Assistance 

 of Blacksmith 



of course, dependent largely upon size 

 and color. It will not do to place apples 

 of markedly different sizes in the same 

 box. It is desirable neither for appear- 

 ance nor for rapid packing. No accurate 

 calculation can be made upon the style 

 of pack, and no uniformity can be 

 secured in the layers, if the sizes are 

 markedly different. Nevertheless, it is 

 impossible to secure in the apple perfect 



Box of Apples on Bench with Cover in Place 



uniformity in size and shape, but this 

 inequality in size and shape must never 

 be so great as to offend the eye of the 

 fastidious customer. It is upon these 

 very sHght differences of size and shape, 

 however, that the best quahties of a 

 good pack depend. 



•Extracts from Ottawa bulletin. No. 19, entitled, 

 "The Packing of Apples in Barrels and Boxes," by 

 Alex. McNeill, Chief Fruit Division. 



It must not be understood that any 

 good packer will associate two apples 

 differing materially in size. The really 

 skilful packer will take the very slightly 

 smaller apples and use these at the ends 

 of the boxes, the larger always going 

 towards the middle of the box. But 

 this difference in the size of the end and 

 the middle apples is so slight that only 

 the practised eye of the packer would 

 detect it. 



The skilful packer will also take ad- 

 vantage of the slight inequalities in 

 shape. Very few apples are exactly 

 symmetrical, whether you cut them 

 from stem to basin or transversely. If 

 then the packer finds that there is a 

 slight slackness in a row of apples which 

 he is packing across the box, he can 

 usually make this perfectly tight by 



boxes. This would exclude a very large 

 part of the apples in eastern orchards. 

 It may as well be understood, once for 

 all, that the packer who has no higher 

 conception of the box business than to 

 think of it as a receptacle for scabby or 

 wormy apples, had better pack his ap- 

 ples in barrels. He will get a much bet- 

 ter price for them, and will not be lower- 

 ing the reputation of the high-class 

 apples that should be packed exclusively 

 in boxes. 



It may be well here to draw attention 

 to another matter of observation, name- 

 ly, that very few men who have been 

 used to barrel packing ever succeed in 

 the box trade. Rougher methods that 

 have served them in the barrel trade are 

 unconsciously practised when they take 

 up the box trade, and failure is the in- 



It is Bad Practice to Leave Apples in Piles on Ground in the Orchard 



simply turning the specimens one way 

 or the other. Of course, the opposite 

 fault of being somewhat too crowded can 

 be remedied by the same process. Thus 

 the packer will build up a layer from 

 end to end of the box with apples sHghtly 

 smaller in the ends, with the larger ones 

 towards the middle of the box, and yet 

 the most critical customer would not be 

 offended by any difference in the speci- 

 mens. 



It is perhaps not equally important 

 to grade to color, yet this adds greatly 

 to the appearance of the finished box. . 

 If then the packer has the choice, he will 

 put the lighter-colored apples in one box 

 and the highly colored apples in another. 

 Both bo.xes may sell ec(ually well, but 

 neither would have sold so well had the 

 apples been mixed in color in each box. 



It may not be superfluous to say that 

 it is presupposed that no wormy or 

 scabby apples are permitted to go into 



evitable result. Barrel packers, there- 

 fore, who do attempt the box business 

 must divest themselves entirely of many 

 habits and methods of work that may 

 not have interfered with their being 

 fairly successful as barrel packers. 



STYLE OF PACK 

 The simplest method of packing a box 

 of apples is nothing more than the barrel 

 pack practised with boxes. The face 

 is placed upon the box by a method 

 quite similar to that of facing a barrel, 

 and the apples are then placed on the 

 top of this face with no regard to regu- 

 larity. It is needless to say that such a 

 method of packing a box will result in 

 absolute failure. It has been tried in 

 eastern Canada many times, and always 

 with disastrous results. The box is not 

 nearly so well suited to this style of 

 packing as the barrel, and consequently 

 it is more difficult to get a tight package • 



