THE PEACHES OF XEW YORK l6l 



a delicate business for it is equally disastrous to gather the crop before 

 it is ripe enough or to delay a day or two too long. 



Few picking appliances are needed for the peach in New York since 

 the trees are trained so low most of the fruit can be picked from the ground 

 or from a short step-ladder. The knack of peach-picking consists of tipping 

 the fruit sidewise with a light twist which releases it from the branch 

 without the bruise of a direct pull. The care in handling depends largely 

 on the temperament of the picker — a coarse, careless ruflfian cannot handle 

 the tender-fleshed peach with the consideration it deserves. Women are 

 much employed in picking peaches. Two systems of managing pickers 

 are in vogue: They are employed by the day in charge of a competent 

 foreman; or the picker is supplied with tickets or tally cards and is paid 

 by the basket. The day-system is commonest and most satisfacto^}^ 

 Wlien peach-picking is in full swing a man can pick loo half -bushel baskets 

 in a day of sorts like Elberta in which the fruits ripen at the same time,' 

 but the quantity grows smaller and smaller as the varieties decrease in 

 size and increase in length of ripening-time. Peaches are usually graded 

 and packed indoors, being brought under cover in special picking receptacles 

 into which the fruit is put as it comes from the tree. Packing indoors 

 is a comparatively modem innovation, the method a decade or two ago 

 being to pack in the field as is occasionally done now, more especially 

 for local markets. 



Grading peaches is still a matter of local or personal practice in New 

 York as it is the country' over. No .state seems yet to have regulated by 

 law the grading of peaches, as several have done with the apple. The 

 need is quite as great for such laws for one fruit as for the other, and no 

 doubt grading peaches in New York will soon be regulated by the strong 

 arm of the law as is grading apples. The essentials in good grading as 

 now practiced are fair or large size for the variety, high and characteristic 

 color, uniformity in size and color, freedom from bruises and insect and 

 fungus injuries, and fidl and characteristic flavor for the variety. Peaches 

 van.- much in shape and pubescence depending on soil and climate — so 

 much that through variations in these characters the identity of varieties is 

 sometimes lost — but grading is not yet sviflficiently refined to take note 

 of either character. Good growers sort into at least three grades, 



counting cvills. 



Not solely as a matter of record but to inspire further progress as 

 well, we record the fact that New York is behind the times in the package 



