86 THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 



Sour sorts are in full swing as money-making crops. The limits of profit- 

 able age are not set by the life of the tree but, rather, by its size. Thus, 

 cherry trees of either of the species commonly cultivated are not infre- 

 quently centenarians but the profitable age of an orchard is not often 

 more than from thirty to forty years. After this time the trees become 

 large and the expense of caring for them and of picking the fruit becomes 

 so great as to prevent profits. Moreover, disease, injuries and inevitable 

 accidents will have thinned the ranks of trees until the orchard is below 

 profit-making. 



Cherry-picking begins in New York about the first of July, following 

 the rush in harvesting strawberries, and lasts, if the orchard contains both 

 Sweet and Sour varieties, from four to six weeks. Workers may in this 

 way fill in a gap between small-fruits and other tree-fruits and the crop 

 becomes one in which the grower may often take small profits to keep 

 his help employed; though, in the long run, if the more or less frequent 

 depressions can be weathered, the cherry may prove as profitable as other 

 fruits. 



The problem of labor is a most vexatious one under present conditions, 

 it being impossible to obtain casual men laborers for cherry-picking and 

 women and children are unsatisfactory, since the fruit must be carefully 

 picked or both cherries and trees siiffer. The problem is solved, unsatis- 

 factorily in most cases, in various ways by different growers. Most of 

 the crop is now picked by children in the teens under the eyes of men 

 or women supervisors. In picking for the market the stem is left on 

 and only the stem is touched by the fingers. Cherries for canning 

 factories are less laboriously picked. The picking package is usually an 

 eight-pound basket. The rate paid is one cent per pound. Pickers earn 

 $1.50 to $2.00 per day in good seasons. Close watch is kept on pickers 

 to prevent the breaking off of fruit-spurs, thereby destroying the succeeding 

 year's crop, varieties fruiting in clusters suffering especially from careless- 

 ness in this respect. Cherries are picked a few days before full ripeness. 



Cherries are sent to canneries in various packages but chiefly in 

 half-bushel baskets or paper-lined bushel crates, the container being often 

 supplied by the cannery. The six- and eight-povmd baskets are the favored 

 receptacles for Sour Cherries in city markets but the Sweet sorts are rather 

 oftener sent in f otu--pound baskets and still more frequently in quart boxes. 

 In the larger packages not much effort is made to make the fruit attractive 

 but in the smaller ones, stemless and bruised cherries are thrown out and 



