Picking and Packing. 401 
not be wandering over the plantation in search of 
the best picking. Fig. 90 shows the method of 
“lining off” eranberry pickers. 
Necessity of hand-picking.—It would seem to be 
unnecessary to say that all) fruits which are to be 
put into a good market should be hand-picked, and 
yet it is a fact that a great quantity of the apples, 
and even of the pears and plums, which go into 
our common markets are shaken from the trees. 
It is impractieable to grade or sort such fruits, 
beeause the proportion of jammed or bruised fruits 
is so great that the samples of first qualty are 
found to be very few. It is an axiom in fruit- 
marketing that only the best fruit pays for careful 
packing, and that the poor fruit is rarely worth the 
trouble of grading. The better the fruit, therefore, 
and the more carefully if is picked, the more profit- 
able may be the attention which is given to  sort- 
ing and packing. 
THE PACKING OF FRUIT. 
What is first-class fruit?—The very first thing to 
be considered in the packing of fruit is to deter- 
mine what first-class’ fruit is. Even amongst those 
persons who sell apples for the export trade, there 
is very little exact practice in the sorting of the 
apples. It seems to be ordinarily considered that 
any fruit which is sound enough to reach its desti- 
nation is good enough to be ealled first-class ; 
but such standard is a serious error. The fruit 
AA 
