128 FRUIT FARMING 



One grower who makes a speciality of choice 

 Apples (Cox's Orange) finds a ready sale for them in 

 boxes holding 18, 24, or 36, which are sold at the 

 same price, and average about five pounds in weight, 

 the 1 8 being the finest selected fruit. This culture 

 can even be undertaken by private people, ladies or 

 gentlemen, as a paying hobby, and no doubt our 

 large growers will also take up such a profitable 

 system of sale, as in that way they can realise double 

 or treble the market value of bushel packages. See 

 previous remarks as to cross fertilization, page g. 



A new and improved card-board punnet has been 

 patented ; its chief value consists in its having a little 

 wire handle, so that on opening the cases, which hold 

 12 or more punnets, the fruit can be got at easily 

 without handling. 



It is the custom to pack all hard fruit for Covent 

 Garden, or other London Markets, in baskets called 

 " halves " (half-sieves), which hold, nominally, four 

 gallons. Large Apples should be put into sieves, 

 but dessert kinds sell better in " halves." * '* I should 

 like to give a warning against the practice of putting 

 large cooking apples in half-sieves. This is very 

 generally done, but is by no means a good plan. A 

 * half of large Apples does not contain more than 

 three or four layers, and in the packing, loading, and 

 general knocking about the basket gets before reaching 

 its final destination, the bottom layer becomes bruised, 

 while the top layer suffers in the same way from the 

 pressure of packing sticks, or possibly from the gentle 

 railway porter's hob-nail boots when he is dancing on 

 the baskets to make them fit into the railway truck. 



* From Year's Work. 



