AMERICAN-GROWN PAPRIKA. 



17 



HARVESTING. 



The pods should be uniformly ripe when picked. Although they 

 usually begin to ripen early in July, quantities sufficient to justify 

 picking are not usually found before the middle of the month. 

 After the ripening season sets in it is generally necessary to pick 

 about every seven days. (Fig. 7.) By picking thus frequently the 

 curing houses are not overloaded and the crop is conveniently handled. 

 In Hungary the pepper fruits are picked with the stems attached, to 

 give opportunity for stringing the fruits into long festoons, in which 

 iorm they are hung up to dry. In South Carolina, where artificial 



Fig. 7. — Picking paprika peppers. The pods are piled on sheets at the end of the rows. 



heat is used in specially constructed houses, the stems are not needed 

 and the fruits are picked without them. 



CURING. 



The processes of curing and picking peppers are closely related, 

 in that the amount of peppers to be picked at any one time should 

 not exceed the available drying facilities, and the curing barn must 

 be so managed as to finish up each picking before the succeeding lot 

 of pods requires the building. This means that a curing barn of 

 a given capacity will serve a definite acreage of pepper field. As- 



