FRUIT HARVESTING OPERATIONS 9 
Care in Picking.—In removing the fruit from the 
trees too much cannot be said in regard to the care in 
handling. Much fruit is ruined by carelessness in pick- 
ing. Often fruit is dropped into receptacles, poured 
roughly into boxes or barrels, jolted over rough roads in 
wagons without springs and in many ways handled so 
carelessly that fully 50 or 75% of its market value is 
wasted. <A good picker should always work with both 
hands. The fruit is grasped in the palm of the hand 
and not between the thumb and finger. Often a very 
slight pull is sufficient to remove the fruit, but in some 
of the more persistent varieties, a twist and an upward 
lift at the same time is necessary to get it off without 
pulling on the stems. Good apples or fruit of any kind 
should never be dropped or poured from one basket to 
another. Every effort is made to handle the fruit as 
carefully as possible, usually picking the fruit from one 
package to another like an egg-sorter would handle eggs. 
To the fruit grower who is familiar with the different 
methods of picking, nothing is more disgusting than to 
see a person step up to a nice peach or apple and stick 
his thumb through the skin to see if it is soft enough 
to eat. This almost invariably indicates ignorance or 
gross carelessness, 
Succession of Pickings—In many apple sections, 
what is commonly known as a ‘‘succession of pickings’’ 
is made. By this is meant the going over of the trees 
several times, picking first the fruit which is the right 
size and the best colored and then, a few days later, 
repeating the process. This is an accepted rule among 
deciduous fruit growers of plums, peaches, etc., but is 
not generally practiced in the Northern or Eastern states 
