22 REPORT ON THE FRUITS OF ONTARIO. Xo. 33 



cut to a bevel on each end. Insert one end above and the other end below the girdle, mak- 

 ing sure that the cut surfaces are in contact with the cambium layer. A sufficient 

 number of these scions should be put in to convey the cambium from the top to the 

 roots and all cut surfaces exposed should be covered with wax. 



PICKING. 



Apples should be carefully picked by hand, without breaking the skin or bruising 

 the fruit in any way. Summer varieties for immediate home use or special local trade 

 should be allowed to ripen on the tree; but if intended for distant markets or storage 

 they should be picked when fully mature, but before they have commenced to mellow. 

 Winter varieties should hang on the tree until they have reached full size and have 

 taken on good color. Apples picked while still immature as a rule keep longer than 

 if allowed to fully ripen on the tree, but they do not develop the full color nor the best 

 quality. No sharp distinction can be made between green and mature, or between fully 

 mature and over-ripe fruit; one blends imperceptibly into the other. Experience teaches 

 at what stage to harvest the crop in order to secure the highest quality and best keep- 

 ing properties in the fruit. Sometimes, with summer varieties, it is necessary to go 

 over a tree twice, picking the most mature specimens first and leaving the remainder 

 for a week or two in order that they may more perfectly develop. Round bottom baskets 

 or pails should be used for picking, and it is better to have them lined with cloth to 

 prevent bruising the fruit. Fruit should not be piled on the ground, but should be 

 placed at once on the sorting table or be placed in boxes or barrels for removal to the 

 packing house. The apple should be picked with the stem on but without breaking 

 off the fruit spur, as is likely to occur if the fruit is picked too green. Spring waggons 

 should be used to convey the fruit to and from the packing house. 



When the trees have been properly pruned, the fruit may all be harvested from 

 ladders. A short step-ladder is convenient for the underside and low branches of the 

 tree. For the upper branches light cedar ladders of suitable length will be found very 

 convenient. Extension ladders have been praised very highly in the past, but as they 

 are both awkward and cumbersome, practical growers are abandoning them. The prac- 

 tice of climbing through the tree to gather the fruit, and letting the baskets down to 

 the ground by means of a rope, is out of date, and is not practised in commercial 

 orchards. Inexperienced pickers often lose a great deal of time by not picking clean 

 as they go, making it necessary to carry the ladder back and forth. Each time the 

 ladder is moved all apples in reach should be picked. 



