124 ^^-E CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



fine tooth harrow, and keep it just as fine as I can. We will 

 leave that matter and come to the point of spraying. I don't 

 wish to dwell hardly a bit on the subject of spraying-, because 

 it has been so thoroughly discussed and handled better than 

 I can do it. I won't say anything about the different things 

 for spraying, because that subject can be better handled by 

 the experiment station and the scientific men. There is one 

 point in spraying which is important, and that is to consider 

 what implements we are going to use. Don't in a large Xew 

 England apple orchard think of spraying by hand, it is too 

 much work. You can't do it and do it well. Get some kind 

 of a power behind the pump that will throw a fine spray and 

 throw it thoroughly all over the tree. Then we come to the 

 harvesting, and you see how these things come right along 

 so closely after each other. You hardly get through culti- 

 vating and spraying before the harvest time comes, and it 

 don't seem as though the apples are ready, and yet they are 

 there hanging on the trees, and each tree that contains a few 

 barrels of apples will have in each barrel four or five hundred 

 individual specimens, and we have got to pick them one at a 

 time by hand in order to make successful work in harvesting. 

 You must be very spry, for the man who handles a gang of 

 men in picking apples wants to be right on to his work, and 

 right after these men, and if there is a poor picker among 

 them, send him out splitting rails, because a poor apple picker 

 is like a poor dairy "cow to the dairyman. Don't have a man 

 that is not adapted to picking apples very long at that work, 

 for you want a man to be very careful, so that when he goes 

 up into a tree he will pick all within his reach before he comes 

 down. Some men \\'\\\ put a ladder up two or three times to 

 get all the apples in a particular place, while another man will 

 put it up but once. When a man goes into a tree with a 

 basket on his arm, see that he picks them all as he goes along. 

 Be very careful that the picker breaks off the apple as he 

 should, and not yank down three on the ground while he 

 puts one into the basket. Sometimes you will see them lay 

 a basket down on the steps of the ladder, and then pick an 

 apple and drop it down into the basket; don't let him do it. 

 Then we have got to take each individual four hundred to a 



