30 



BULLETIN OF 



Massachusetts Boakd of Ageiculture. 



HARVESTING AND MARKETING APPLES. 



By P. A. Waugh, Professor of Horticulture, Massachusetts Agricultural College. 



The apple tree is peculiarly at home in Massachusetts and New 

 York State. Northward the severe winters make the growing of 

 many varieties precarious, while southward the trees are less and 

 less thrifty, until in the extreme southern States apples are almost 

 as rare as oranges are with us. 



The commercial importance of the apple crop in Massachusetts 

 is increasing rapidly from year to year. In general we are seeing 

 more clearly that the more refined lines of agriculture are the ones 

 in which we reap the greatest success, and amongst these fancier 

 crops requiring more intensive culture, the apple takes high rank. 



It must be said that the methods of handling the apple crop 

 have been \e.vy much changed in recent years. The farmers 

 who still adhere to the old-fashioned way of doing things do not 

 find great encouragement in selling apples. On the other hand, 

 those who have taken up with modern ideas, or better still have 

 led in the establishment of modern practices, are reaping their 

 just and generous reward. 



Picking the Fruit. 

 The time was when the apples used to be shaken off the trees. 

 A still lazier method was to allow them to fall off. Such apples 

 are fit only for second-class cider, and if that was the market to 

 which they were destined, no great damage was done. However, 

 such apples are still sometimes offered in the markets. They are 

 almost always a dead loss to the man who attempts to sell them, 

 and interfere, sometimes seriously, with the sales of good hand- 

 picked fruit. Apples must be hand-picked from the trees in order 

 to be marketable. This is the only way. Moreover, they must be 

 carefully hand-picked and they should be taken off with the stems 



