The Canadian Horticulturist. 87 



KKEPING TALLY WITH BERRY I'ICKERS. 



SxB,r- Could you give me any information about a new system of keeping tally with 

 strawberry pickers of which a note appeared somewhere in the Canadian Horticulturist, 

 and I have looked a good deal and cannot And anything about it. Some man in the States 

 was the inventor. I think the thing was something of the nature of a conductor's punch. 

 If you could write the address on a postal card or give me any information so that 1 could 

 get it, I would be very much obliged. 



O. F. BuRCHARD, Kingscourt, Out. 



Reply from essay by J. H. Hale, South Glastonbury, Conn. 



In gathering and marketing the crop there should be one picker for each 

 thirty or forty quarts of the daily product, and a superintendent to every fifteen 

 or twenty pickers to assign them their rows and inspect their work from time to 

 time to see that they keep to their rows and do not trample on the vines, pick 

 the fruit clean and grade it according to the demands of the market to be sup- 

 plied. Upon the thoroughness of this superintendent's work will depend a large 

 measure of the success of the business. For keeping tally with the pickers, the 

 best plan I know of is to give each a picking stand or rack of a size suitable to 

 hold four, six, or eight quart baskets. This should be plainly stenciled with the 

 number of the picker, all of whom should be numbered. On commencement 

 of each day's work the picker is given this rack with its full quota of baskets, no 

 more or less, and is required to return them, either full or empty, to the picking 

 shed, when a daily account ticket is given. This ticket is of tough check paper, 

 3 /^ X 1 1^ inches ; across the top is space for name and number of picker, day 

 and date of the week ; then five upright columns of eight figures, representing 

 I, 2, 3, 4, and 8 quarts, or 144 quarts in all — as much as even good pickers are 

 likely to pick in one day. From this is punched, with a conductor's punch, 

 number representing quarts of berries brought in, and given to the picker, who 

 is then given a fresh lot of baskets, and returns to work and continues in this 

 way till the day's work is done. Then the daily ticket is taken up and the num- 

 ber of quarts it represents as having been picked is then punched out of the 

 weekly ticket, which is of the same tough check paper, size 5 ^ x 2)^ inches. 

 This ticket has space for name and number of picker, amount paid per quart, 

 and date of the week on which it ends, and six columns of figures for a record 

 of the berries picked each working day in the week, column for sum, total and 

 cash paid on Saturday — date of ending. These tickets are carried by the 

 pickers through the week, a new daily ticket given each morning and taken up 

 at night ; then on Saturday when we pay off, we take up the weekly tickets and 

 file them away, and thus in a simple form have a complete record of all berries 

 picked, and in case of loss of a weekly ticket by a picker before the end of the 



