226 Diseases of Truck Crops 



lose heavily from rotting of the fruit before it reaches 

 its destination. Most of the loss may be reduced to 

 a minimum or entirely prevented, provided growers 

 are willing to devote more attention to certain 

 fundamental considerations suggested by More and 

 Branch. 1 



a. Need of Quality. No one can deny the fact 

 that products which are poorly grown, poorly har- 

 vested, and poorly packed and shipped, are a direct 

 loss to the grower and a serious drawback to the 

 market. The consumer to-day insists on quality, 

 and the grower who is to succeed cannot ignore this 

 demand. Cantaloupes to-day are grown more ex- 

 tensively than formerly. Competition therefore is 

 more keen, and growers in the West are more handi- 

 capped, because their products must travel longer 

 distances, and therefore require more care in handling. 

 By selecting fruit which matures early and at the 

 same time possesses better edible and shipping 

 qualities the difficulty will be at least partly solved. 



b. Care in Picking and Handling. Success in 

 shipping depends largely on proper picking and hand- 

 ling. With the "Netted Gem" or "Green Nets," 

 the melons should not be harvested until completely 

 netted. The netting should be well raised and 

 rounded out on the surface. With immature melons 

 the netting is flat and creased on top. For shipping 

 short distances the melons may be picked "full slip, " 

 i. e. just as soon as the stem separates cleanly from 



1 More, C. T., and Branch, G. V., U. S. Dept. of Agr. Farm. Bui. 

 707 : 1-23, 1916. 



