ROBBING'S FRUIT GROWERS' GUIDE 



67 



first touch of spring and are far ahead of any that can 

 be planted after that time. 



The only thing necessary to successful summer plant- 

 ing is to see that the trees are properly handled from 

 the nursery to the orchard and are sufficiently well 

 irrigated and cultivated. The prompt application of 

 water to newly planted trees is very essential in late 

 planting. 



PACKING THE ORANGE 



The grower with five or ten acres of oranges usually 

 does not consider it necessary to pack his crop. 



It has been a practice of the small grower to deliver 

 fruit to the packing house without noticing its condition 

 and quality, whether above or below the average of his 

 locality. Only when the returns come in does he realise 

 that had the quality and size been better more satis- 

 factory returns might have been had. It must be 

 borne in mind that consumers are human beings like 

 ourselves, and that unless the quality is such that it 

 appeals to them they are going to pass it up in much the 

 same manner as we do when we go into a store to pur- 

 chase fruit or vegetables for our own use. 



If the grower will begin studying packing and market- 

 ing conditions, noting the size and quality of fruit 

 demanded, methods of properly handling and packing 

 from orchard to loaded car, it will often not only assist 

 to correct bad conditions in the orchard for the pro- 

 duction of the best grades of fruit, but it will be a guide 

 in determining what shipper to intrust with your crop, 

 for the shipper who maintains the highest and most 

 uniform grade of packing is bound to get the most satis- 

 factory returns for the grower. It is necessary, first of 

 all, to keep the orchard in such condition by proper 

 methods of irrigating and cultivating that it will produce 

 only the best quality of .fruit. Size and quality cannot 

 always be governed by cultural methods, for it often 

 happens that climatic conditions cause the fruit to be 

 small one season and large another, in spite of the care 

 exercised. Taken one year with another, however, it 

 pays to give intensive culture. 



In picking and handling the fruit care is essential, 

 as the carrying quality of the fruit depends largely on 

 the manner in which it is handled from the orchard to 

 the car. The practice of having fruit picked by day 

 labor gives better results. It costs a little more to har- 

 vest a crop this way, but the results are much more 

 satisfactory, as the loss from bruising is less, which more 

 than offsets the additional cost. 



Care must be exercised in picking to use clippers that 

 do not cut or injure the fruit. The stems must be cut 

 close, as one orange with a long stem may puncture or 

 bruise a dozen or more while passing from the picking 

 bags to the boxes, and from there to the packing house. 



It was estimated that from eighty-five to ninety per 

 cent of the heavy decay in California oranges a few 

 years ago was directly due to the methods of picking 

 and handling the fruit in the orchards, so that it is to 

 the interest of the orchardist to personally see that the 

 pickers are careful in cutting the fruit from the trees 

 and placing them in the boxes. The picking bags used 

 for this purpose are open at the bottom, and if the 

 picker is careful, the fruit can be let out of these into 



the boxes without allowing it to drop or bump against 

 other fruit in the box. Care must also be exercised in 

 filling the boxes so that when stacked in the wagon on 

 top of each other, the boxes will not be so full that the 

 fruit will get bruised or smashed. All wagons for haul- 

 ing the fruit should be equipped with springs so as to 

 reduce the jar and jolting to a minimum. 



The modern equipment in packing houses is calcu- 

 lated to reduce to a minimum the chances of bruising 

 the fruit while passing from the receiving door to 'the 

 car, and the old-time graders and elevators, whereby 

 the fruit Was subjected to drops of from six to eight 

 inches, have been consigned to the scrap heap. 



To those who have never seen an orange packing 

 house in operation, a description of the methods em- 

 ployed therein will, no doubt, be of some interest. 

 The fruit, after being taken in at the receiving door, is 

 trucked to the grader, then dumped into a hopper and 

 carried by a belt conveyor to the brushes; these are so 

 arranged that, as it passes through, every particle of 

 dust is brushed off. When the fruit is very dirty it is 

 sometimes necessary to first pass it through washers, 

 where the smut and dirt is washed off by brushes 

 operating in water; it must then be thoroughly dried 

 before going back to the grader. If the washing is not 

 necessary, the fruit passes from brushes to the sorting 

 table and is there selected as to quality. The regular 

 grades are fancy, choice, standards and culls, although 

 some packers put up an extra fancy and an extra choice 

 brand. As the fruit is sorted, it is conveyed to the 

 different graders. In large houses a grader is used for 

 each brand, which are so arranged that the fruit passes 

 over rollers adjusted so that the different sizes fall 

 through into bins arranged on either side of the grader, 

 and from which the packers take the fruit and pack it 

 into boxes. Where only one grader is used and one 

 brand of fruit runs at a time, the remaining fruit is 

 taken from the sorting table before it reaches the 

 grader and sent back to run over the grader later on. 

 In the larger houses where several graders are in opera- 

 tion at the same time, each grade of fruit is passed from 

 the sorting tables to a belt conveyor carrying it to the 

 grader handling that grade of fruit; this does away with 

 the necessity of passing any of the fruit over the sorting 

 table a second time. In sorting the fruit, only such as is 

 considered perfect, that is, free from blemishes, sound 

 in quality and fairly smooth, is sorted out for the fancy 

 or extra fancy grade. The next best goes to the choice 

 grade, and consists of such fruit as may be only slightly 

 blemished and possibly not quite so smooth as the fancy 

 grade, but otherwise sound and of good quality; that 

 which is quite badly scarred and with a rough skin, but 

 of sound and good keeping quality, is packed as stand- 

 ard; and all fruit showing an unsound skin, either 

 from being bruised in picking or handling, which tends 

 to impair its keeping qualities, is thrown out as culls. 

 The standard box used for packing oranges is divided 

 into two compartments ll^xll^xll^ inches, and the 

 sizes into which the oranges are graded are 64s, 80s, 

 96s, 112s, 126s, 150s, 176s, 200s, 216s, 250s, and 324s, 

 the bins being so arranged that each size is graded into 

 a separate receptacle. After being packed the boxes- 



