Handling the Crop 299 



vantages of a packing-house are: (1) Centralization of 

 packing operations, no time being lost in moving equip- 

 ment about the orchard; (2) packing may continue unin- 

 terrupted during inclement weather; (3) improved sizers 

 and other labor-saving devices may be installed econom- 

 ically ; (4) packages for the fruit are kept cleaner than if 

 handled in the orchard. 



The eastern apple-grower has come to rely on cold 

 storage rather than common storage in holding his crop 

 for any length of time. For this reason, common storage 

 in connection with packing plants is not recognized as 

 such an important feature as in the West. The grower 

 either sells his winter apples immediately or places them 

 in cold storage. Therefore, the packing-shed in the bar- 

 ' reled apple industry assumes more the nature of a shelter 

 for centralized packing operations. 



Eastern and middle western apple packing-houses might 

 arbitrarily be classified in three groups: (1) Those pro- 

 viding a mere shelter for either the inclined slatted-top or 

 canvas-top sorting-tables; (2) those which not only pro- 

 vide shelter for the packing operation, but which have a 

 small sizing machine and possibly certain other labor-sav- 

 ing devices; (3) the large improved packing-shed with a 

 daily capacity of 300 to 1,200 barrels of apples. 



In the third class are the larger and best equipped 

 mechanical sizers, fitted, with conveyer belts, improved 

 bins and other equipment calculated to insure the greatest 

 speed and efficiency in handling the crop. With such 

 packing-houses, the fruit is usually delivered from the 

 orchard on to a receiving platform or possibly directly on 

 to a receiving belt which carries it past the sorters and 

 delivers it directly into the sizing mechanism. The 



