32 BULLETIN 1-34, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE, 



of stems with the fruit. These are placed in small baskets, supported 

 in the tree or carried on the arm, and when filled are carried to the 

 men who clip off the extra stem, leaving the usual button. In the 

 case of verdellis, green lemons, during the summer, these are some- 

 times broken from the tree by means of a forked bamboo rod. This 

 rod is long enough to reach to all parts of the tree from the ground, 

 and the fruit is simply allowed to fall "as it is twisted off. When asked 

 about the effects of bruising by such a method, it was stated that the 

 fall does not hurt the green fruit. Such a method is rapid, since the 

 lemons are quickly twisted off and allowed to fall, and are picked up, 

 usually by small boys, but it is not practiced by the best growers. 



The fruit with the small buttons is placed in baskets and carried 

 thus to the field packing house (PI. X, fig. 3). Here it is roughly 

 graded, and the culls are separated for consignment to the by-product 

 factory. It is placed in the regular shipping boxes (PI. X, figs. 1,2), 

 but thrown in loosely, with paper around the inside of the box. 

 Sometimes with the better grades, and in the case of long hauls, 

 each lemon is wrapped separately. In these shipping boxes the fruit 

 is carried in carts to the town or exporter's packing house, where it is 

 regraded, sorted, and packed back in the same boxes, when it is 

 carried in carts to the fighter, and thence to the steamer for final 

 shipment. (PI. IX, fig. 2.) 



The time the fruit remains in the field packing house may vary 

 from 1 to 3 or 4 days, or longer; in the exporters' packing houses, 

 from a day or two to a week or two. The average time of transit from 

 Palermo to New York is 12 or 15 days. The time between the picking 

 and the landing of the fruit in New York may thus range from 18 

 days to 30 or 40 days. 



A large percentage of the fruit that is harvested during the spring 

 and early summer is what is called in California tree-ripe fruit, 

 while that harvested in midsummer and fall is mostly green fruit, or 

 verdellis. Verdellis, of course, occur with the yellow fruit, and they 

 are packed separately and so consigned. The large proportion of 

 verdellis which occur in midsummer are artifically produced. During 

 the previous summer water was withheld from the trees for about six 

 weeks, and then two or three irrigations were applied in quick suc- 

 cession. This procedure causes the trees to throw out an unusual 

 amount of blossoms which mature into fruit the following summer. 

 This fact of a very large preponderance of green fruit during the 

 summer and fall has an important practical bearing in connection 

 with the possible infestation of the Mediterranean fruit-fly. It is 

 during the summer and fall that the fly is most actively breeding. 

 Very little yellow fruit appears before November, but from that time 

 until the following July it is nearly all yellow fruit. No place was 

 seen in Sicily where lemons are subjected to forced curing, as they are 

 in California. 



