The Number of Grades. 405 
Ben Davis apples just opened, in which the different 
specimens are of uniform size and quality. 
Essentially these same remarks may be applied to 
other kinds of fruits. It should }e remembered 
that the more personal and local the market, the 
more exaeting that market is, and therefore the 
greater attention should be paid to the details of 
sorting and verading. It should be especially im- 
pressed upon the horticulturist that uniformity im 
size is quite as important to a package of fruits as 
excellence in intrinsic quality of the imdividual speci- 
mens. The reader will also recall that the proper 
grading of fruit is ereatly facilitated by thinning the 
fruits on the trees, aw subject which has received 
specific treatment in Chapter VI. It would seem to 
be unnecessary to add that the mechanical sorters 
now recommended in some quarters ave wholly un- 
adapted to use for any but the rougher and cheaper 
qualities of fruits and for potatoes. High quality 
apples which come through the sorter apparently 
without blemish usually show discolored spots in a 
few days, and softer fruits are often ruined. 
It is evident, therefore, that if fruit ix sorted, two 
grades will result,—the first-class grade and the re- 
mainder. In small-fruits, these two grades — known 
as the firsts and the seeconds—usually comprise the 
entire crop,-and the same may be true of tree fruits 
which have been well grown and rigorously thinned. 
Tn most cases, however, tree fruits are made into 
three grades. the third erade being generally Known 
as culls. Persous who sort their fruit as carefully 
