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13 



PROPER PACKING 

 .^ PROTECTS PROFITS 



Grower, wholesaler and retailer all realize the importance of packing 

 stock to he shipped to market. Good packing means better stock and better 

 profits all along the line. Lon.g experience and careful investigation in the 

 Baltimore market give real value to readers in" Tate's Tips'' on this subject. 



O NUMEEOUS in every 

 wholesale market are the 

 complaints of damaged 

 stock, due entirely to bad 

 handling, that it would be 

 highly profitable to the 

 whole trade if some sys- 

 tem of packing could be 

 devised which would at 

 least reduce this waste to 

 a minimum. The thing that strikes one 

 upon investigation is that there are 

 some growers whose stock comes on the 

 market 100 per cent perfect. Now, if 

 this be possible for some, why not for 

 all? To find the answer to this ques- 

 tion, I selected a list of growers, then 

 went out to their ranges, determined to 

 watch the cut all the way from the 

 plants to the retailers' hands. To the 

 credit of these growers be it said thai 

 every one of them was most willing to 

 cooperate with The Keview in this un- 

 dertaking and lent every aid 

 they could to the investiga- 

 tion. Now, at the beginning 

 I might remind my readers 

 that these men, who have all 

 been successful, are what 

 might be termed large grow- 

 ers, yet every one of them 

 has come from humble begin- 

 nings in the business. An- 

 other peculiar thing is that 

 the systems used by them 

 vary but little. As one 

 grower remarked, "It is 

 eternal vigilance that is the 

 price of success." 



Boses Suffer Most. 



In this article I am going 

 to deal with roses only, as it 

 is these which suifer most. A 

 broken rose cannot be used 

 at all. While a bruised one 

 may be used after the outer 

 petals have been removed, 

 yet what is left of the orig- 

 inal flower is apt to wither 

 prematurely and cause dis- 

 satisfaction to the retailer's 

 '"ustomer. We are not going 

 to deal with the retailers, but 

 rather endeavor to put roses 

 into their hands in perfect 

 condition and leave the rest 

 to them. 



In my investigation I found 

 that to do this, care must be 

 exercised from the time the 

 rose is cut from the plant, 

 •^-utting is done twice each 

 day, the first thing in the 

 morning and the last thing 

 in the afternoon. The rea- 



son these hours are chosen is because the 

 sun is not so strong at those hours as in 

 the middle of the day. The manner of 

 cutting conies next, and I am convinced 

 this is most important. Often I have 

 seen the men, as soon as they had as 

 many cut as they could hold in their free 

 hands, lay the blooms on the bench or 

 bed until the entire cut was completed. 



Proper Cutting. 



This is never done by those who are 

 most successful, but as soon as the cut- 

 ter has seventy-five, or as many as he 

 can hold, he goes to the shed, where 

 there are tin cans, ten inches in 

 diameter, filled with water from the pre- 

 vious cut, the temperature of the water 

 being about the same as the shed. He 

 places the flowers in these almost as 

 fast as they are cut. In this manner 

 they are not permitted to wilt the 

 least bit while they are being cut. 



Proper Packing Insures Arrival in Perfect Condition. 



When the cut is completed the next 

 important move is to grade the cut. 

 Five standards are used: Extra, 30- 

 inch to 36-inch stems; special, 20-inch 

 to 24-inch; No. 1, 15-inch to 18-inch; 

 No. 2, 10-inch to 12-inch, and short, 

 which includes anything that is left 

 from the foregoing grades. 



After sorting, the various grades are 

 placed in receptacles, the most con- 

 venient being made of tin, ten inches 

 in diameter and of various depths to 

 accommodate the stems. The water 

 used in these is just as it comes from 

 the spigot, no attention being paid to 

 the temperature. The blooms are then 

 placed in cellars, where the temperature 

 will run from 45 to 50 degrees, and are 

 allowed to stand from twenty to twenty- 

 four hours. This is known as the hard- 

 ening off process. .Of course we all un- 

 derstand that emergencies may arise 

 when it will not be possible to give 

 them this long to harden, but 

 the object of this article is 

 to outline a system as nearly 

 perfect as possible. Some 

 growers tell me they would 

 not send their cut to market 

 if the blooms had stood less 

 than twenty or twenty-four 

 hours. 



Packing the Box. 



We now come to the actual 

 packing. The first move is 

 to bunch the roses in bundles 

 of twenty-five, keeping the 

 flowers close together in a 

 flat-topped bunch and tying 

 firmly, so as to prevent break- 

 age. Then they are wrapped 

 in paper, as shown in the il- 

 lustration, and the bundle is 

 marked with the grade it 

 contains. Most growers use a 

 rubber stamp for this and 

 have the paper cut in the 

 regular sizes. The growers 

 have stamps made, reading, 

 for instance, "25 Extra"; 

 some go farther and have a 

 stamp for each variety they 

 grow, such as ' ' 25 Ophelia 

 Special." You will find the 

 night fireman will be glad of 

 the job of stamping the paper 

 to keep him awake. 



The roses are now ready 

 for the shipping box. The 

 bundles are laid in the box, 

 which has been heavily lined 

 with paper. Old newspapers 

 will answer /Well for this. 

 Where the r^ses have a long 

 trip by express or boat, the 



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