34 



BULLETIN 851, U. S. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



used to a great extent on the winter varieties, principally the Rhode 

 Island Greening and Baldwin. Xo doubt within a few years the 

 majority of commercial apple growers in these counties will be 

 using mechanical sizers and packing a considerable amount of their 

 fruit in the packing shed or barn or in community packing houses. 

 By referring to Table XXI, it will be seen that the growers ot 

 Orleans County sorted and packed their fruit most cheaply, while 

 the average cost for these operations was greatest in Ontario 

 County. Considering 188 growers who sorted and packed their own 

 fruit, regardless of whether or not they used sizers, it required on 

 an average 36.72 man hours for sorting and packing an acre of 

 fruit. The total cost per acre for sorting and packing was $7.35, or 

 9 cents per barrel. 



Table XXI. — Average time and cost per acre for sorting and packing (western 



New York, 1910-1915). 







Sorting and packing. 





Counties. 



Number 



of 

 records. 



Barrels 

 in 10 



hours. 



Man 



hours. 



Cost. 





Per 

 acre. 



Per 

 ■barrel. 



Wayne 



Ontario , 



Monroe 



32 

 34 



38 

 49 

 35 



29 

 25 

 25 

 28 

 26 



31.10 

 46.18 

 39.18 

 33.30 

 34.94 



S6.22 

 9.24 

 7.84 

 6.70 

 6.99 



SO. 0856 

 .0981 

 .0930 

 .0771 



Niagara 



.0859 



188 



27 



36.72 



7.35 



.0872 







CULL APPLES. 



The solution of the problem of the disposition of cull apples has 

 led to the development of one of the greatest of American by-product 

 industries. Each year large quantities of these low-grade apples are 

 used both for drying and for making cider. It often happens that 

 western New York growers experience severe local hail or wind 

 storms, injuring many apples and sometimes making windfalls of 

 thousands of bushels of what would have been first-class marketable 

 stock. In such cases dry houses and cider mills sometimes open for 

 business very early, so that the farmer may haul in fruit which other- 

 wise might be wasted. If the wind is severe enough to take off any 

 great quantity of apples during harvest, all hands employed are 

 usually turned to picking up the fruit. 



Scattered throughout the apple-producing counties of the State 

 may be found several by-product plants (see fig. 9). A few years 

 ago it was not uncommon for some of the growers to have drier kilns 

 on their own farms. Apples in many instances were not picked, but 



