COST OF PRODUCING APPLES IN YAKIMA VALLEY. 51 
tricts. After the apples are picked they are placed in boxes which 
previously have been distributed throughout the orchard at con- 
venient places. The pickers fill the boxes without heaping, and 
thus one box may be piled upon another without injury to the fruit. 
Usually as the boxes are filled they are piled in the shade at a place 
conveniently located for hauling into the packing shed. In some 
instances ‘“‘lug boxes” are used for hauling the picked fruit to the 
packing shed. This box is of a little heavier type than the ordinary 
packing box, a little wider and longer, and a little shallower, but 
has somewhat greater capacity than the picking box. These boxes 
are used mostly in some of the very large orchards. As a rule, 
however, orchardists considered in this investigation use the regular 
packing box. 
Fic. 9.—Hauling box shooks to the ranch. It is the practice to haul the box shooks from the station, 
and make up the boxes before harvesting time at the ranch. 
The yield is the greatest limiting factor in determining the amount — 
a picker can pick in a day, but where day labor is used the variation 
in the amount picked is not great, owing to the attempt on the part 
of the picker to pick about the same number of boxes per day and 
at about the same cost per box regardless of the crop. (See Table 
XXXVIITI.) 
The yields averaging 200 boxes or less were on the younger orchards. 
Usually the apples on young trees are well placed and of good size, 
the trees are smaller, and there is not so much need of a ladder, so 
that, if the fruit is not scattered too widely, the picker often will be 
able to pick more in a given time than where the crop is larger 
though on bigger trees. 
If contract labor had been employed for picking, no doubt up to a 
certain point the effect of the yield on the picking time would have 
