24 REPORT ON THE FRUITS OF ONTARIO. No. 24 



the cambium above and below the injury. This may be done by bridge-grafting. 

 For this purpose use long scions cut to a bevel on each end. Insert one end 

 above and the other end below the girdle, making sure that the cut surfaces are 

 in contact with the cambium layer. A sufficient number of these scions should 

 be put in to convey the cambium from the top to the roots and all cut surfaces 

 exposed should be covered with wax. 



Picking. 



Apples should be carefully picked by hand, without breaking the skin or 

 bruising the fruit in any way. Summer varieties for immediate home use or special 

 local trade should be allowed to ripen on the tree ; but if intended for distant 

 markets or storage they should be picked when fully mature, but before they 

 have commenced to mellow. Winter varieties should hang on the tree until they 

 have reached full size and have taken on good color. Apples picked while still 

 immature as a rule keep longer than if allowed to fully ripen on the tree, but they 

 do not develop the full color nor the best quality. No sharp distinction can be 

 made between green and mature, or between fully mature and over ripe fruit ; one 

 blends imperceptibly into the other. Experience teaches at what stage to harvest 

 the crop, in order to secure the highest quality and best keeping properties in the 

 fruit. Sometimes, with summer varieties, it is necessary to go over a tree twice, 

 picking the most mature specimens first and leaving the remainder for a week or 

 two in order that they may more perfectly develop. Round bottom baskets or pails 

 should be used for picking, and it is better to have them lined with cloth to pre- 

 vent bruising the fruit. Fruit should not be piled on the ground, but should be 

 placed at once on the sorting table or be placed in boxes or barrels for removal 

 to the packing house. The apple should be picked with the stem on but without 

 breaking off the fruit spur, as is likely to occur if the fruit is picked too green. 

 Spring waggons should be used to convey the fruit to and from the packing house. 



When the trees have been properly pruned, the fruit may all be harvested 

 from ladders. A short step ladder is convenient for the underside and low 

 branches of the tree. For the upper branches light cedar ladders of suitable 

 length will be found very convenient. Extension ladders have been praised very 

 highly in the past, but as they are both awkward and cumbersome, practical 

 growers are abandoning them. The practice of climbing through the tree to 

 gather the fruit, and letting the baskets down to the ground by means of a rope, 

 is out of date, and is not practised in commercial orchards. Inexperienced pick- 

 ers often lose a great deal of time by not picking clean as they go, making it 

 necessary to carry the ladder back and forth. Each time the ladder is moved all 

 apples in reach should be picked. 



