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Late apples for home use or local market should be left as 

 long on the trees as possible. It is certainly a mistake to sell, with 

 mid-season fruit, apples which if kept a month or so longer would 

 sell much better. 



For long-keeping apples for export, gather when the fruit is 

 full grown, and the pips turn dark brown or nearly black. They 

 will colour and mature during transit. 



Pears require, in gathering, much the same treatment. Few 

 pears are at their best if allowed to ripen on the tree, they either 

 become dry or mushy at the core or develop hard stone cells or a 

 woody kernel. Early pears should always be gathered for market 

 before they become fully ripe, and should be marketed rather 

 under than over ripe. Mid-season pears may remain on the tree 

 a little longer, except the Bartlett or William's Bon Chretien, 

 which, picked when fully grown, but hard, ripens without 

 shrivelling. Late pears should be picked before they are fully ripe, 

 or else they become gritty. Kieffer's pears are picked two or 

 three weeks before they are fit to eat, if allowed to hang until 

 ripe, the core becomes a mass of woody lumps. Apples and 

 pears, when fit to be picked, snap clean off the fruiting spur upon 

 being lifted gently upwards. This avoids breaking off the 

 fruit spur to which they are attached, and upon which next 

 year's fruit would be produced. For packing, they should not be 

 allowed to remain on the trees until the surface has a greasy 

 appearance and feels greasy to the touch. When allowed to reach 

 this stage, they will not keep as well as those gathered earlier. 



When picking peaches, it should be remembered that a fine 

 appearance always infers good flavour and other merits. Peaches 

 and apricots seldom colour well after they are picked, and picking is 

 one of the most difficult parts of the business of peach and 

 apricot culture. Most people can pick green pears and apricots and 

 knock them down to the ground, but it takes some experience to 

 judge, by a subtle feeling of the fruit when pressed between the 

 finger and the thumb, when it is ready to come off. After a little 

 practice the picker can generally tell by the colour of the fruit 

 whether it is fit to pick or not. When a large number of trees have 

 to be gone over it is advisable to pick a little too soon rather than 

 let the crop get ahead of you, as, when ripe, the wind often brings 

 them down by the bushel. It is sometimes two or three weeks 

 from the time the first apricots and peaches are fit to pick until 

 the last are ripe ; the trees should be gone over two or three times a 

 week. In some large orchards in America the pickers do not climb 

 up the trees, this process being considered slow, and resulting in 

 much green fruit being knocked off. In those orchards it is pre- 

 ferred to jar the tree when the dew is off and collect the ripe fruit, 

 which then does not pick up dirt. For that purpose the ground 

 underneath the trees is reduced to a fine tilth, so as to save 

 bruising the falling fruit. The jarring is done with a long 

 pole or bamboo with a hook fastened at the end, and the knack of 

 delivering the blow results in just that fruit which is of the proper 



