152 



THE AMERICAN APPLE ORCHARD 



means the best way of putting up commercial apples is 

 to pick by hand from the trees. 



There is something of a knack in picking apples, but 

 unfortunately expert apple pickers are not often to be 

 hired. The fruit-grower is usually obliged to put up 

 with ordinary day labor and to make up i-" the careful- 

 ness of his own supervision the lack of experience on 

 the part of the pickers. Apple pickers usually get the 

 prevailing day wages; that is, from $i to $1.75 a day. 

 Apples are sometimes 

 picked by the bushel or 

 barrel, but this practice 

 is not common and is 

 not to be recommended. 

 AVhen it is indulged in, 

 the price paid is from 

 8 to 15 cents a barrel. 

 The writer has recently 

 been told, on pretty 

 good authority, of a 

 picker who picked 100 

 barrels of apples from 

 the trees in one day. 

 Any such slam-banging 

 Vv'ork as that ought to 

 be prohibited in any well-regulated orchard. The 

 ordinary picker will pick from 12 to 20 barrels a day. 

 Apples should be picked with the stems on and not 

 torn from the trees. Where the stem is pulled out of 

 the apple, the skin is usually broken and an opportu- 

 nity for decay given. 



Some pickers prefer to pick into a sack tied over the 

 shoulder. The best contrivance, however, is undoubt- 

 edly the swinging-bail half-bushel basket. This is 



PICKING BASKET 



