156 FRUIT K.WCHING. 



or two-thirds of one's crop, is a proceeding wliich 

 goes against the grain, and in the case of the 

 beginner requires no ordinary courage. Yet hardly 

 anything pays so well as thorough and judicious 

 thinning. Which is better, to gather five boxes off 

 one tree, each box containing 68 or 72 or 84 apples, 

 to be sold for $2 per box, or eight boxes, out of 

 which you have four boxes of culls that will not sell 

 at all, except to the jam factory at 25 cents a box, 

 and four other boxes running over 200 apples to the 

 b(^x, and making when sold only $1.50 per box? 

 Thinning invariably adds to the total weight of the 

 crop, instead of diminishing it; the apples have a 

 much finer appearance, make a better price, and bring 

 the customer back another year. 



The first requisite for a good apple-packer is a 

 keen, quick eye, so that he can tell at a glance, before 

 he picks up a specimen, which apple will fit into the 

 next space he desires to fill in the box. This saves 

 not only time, but unnecessary handling of the fruit. 

 The second requisite is quickness of handling. For 

 one man to pack a car-load would keep him employed 

 over a month; it takes a quick and clever packer to 

 pack more than twenty boxes in a day of normal 

 length. The car-load of apples, consisting of 630 

 boxes, which won the most important prize ($1,000 — 

 £200) at the grcnt Spokane Apple Show in December, 

 1908, was packed by one man, of course an expert, 

 and the operation kept him occupied for the space of 

 two months. He was deliberately packing for exhibi- 

 tion, and naturally speed was not a matter of moment. 

 His average rate of packing was ten boxes a day. 



The apple-packers of the Hood River Valley, in 



