cost of labor to cell-pack combination Extra Fancy and Fancy grade apples 

 would be $31.64. This is actually a theoretical cost since to achieve it 

 would require a packing crew of 3.2 workers. Thus four packers must be 

 employed, and this raises the cost to 7.2 cents per carton, or $40 per day. 

 Although this is more labor than is needed to cell-pack, it permits these 

 workers also to take care of the bagging that must be done. 



There is another method of cell-packing in common use. With this method, 

 the packer removed apples from the return- flow belt with one hand, inspected 

 them for injuries and other grade requirements and then placed them in cells. 

 To cell-pack 1 carton of size 120 apples this way required 7 man-minutes, or 

 4.25 man-minutes more than when the packer did not reinspect each apple. 



Boxing Utility and Cull Grade Fruit 



Apples that did not meet the quality of U. S. Extra-Fancy or U. S. Fancy 

 grade were removed by the sorters and deposited in the cull chute. From the 

 cull chute the apples went to a conveyor which delivered them to an automatic 

 box filler. Utility-grade apples were placed on the utility disposal belt 

 which delivered the utility fruit, via belt conveyors and chain sizer, to one 

 of two automatic box fillers. At the box filler, apples were delivered into 

 boxes until a preset weight was^ achieved (fig. 6). At this point, the con- 

 veyor stopped delivering apples until the filled box was ejected and another 

 set in its place. Then the conveyor was automatically turned on and box 

 filling resumed. 



Filling boxes with cull or utility grade apples was accomplished without 

 the benefit of direct labor. The entire operation of filling and weighing 

 was performed automatically. However, a worker was required to supply empty 

 boxes to the machines and to remove full boxes from the accumulator conveyors. 

 Another worker was needed to arrange the top layer of each box of utility 

 apples, and to add the last few apples to fill the box. 



When dumping occurred at a rate of 900 boxes per day, and 30 percent of 

 the apples dumped were cull and utility grade, a worker was busy nearly full 

 time tending the box fillers. His responsibilities included supplying empty 

 boxes to fillers for pee-wees, cull grades, and utility grade fruit, and 

 removing full boxes from the box fillers. In addition, he stacked empty boxes 

 from the dumper, cleared jammed areas wherever they occurred, and lined boxes. 



When utility grade apples were boxed by automatic box filler, one or 

 two workers topped the boxes before lidding. Normally, one worker was suffi- 

 cient for this operation but when either the dumping rate was high or an un- 

 usually large percentage of apples were running to utility grade, a second 

 worker was used. 



Topping was done on a wheel conveyor at waist level. Jumble-filled 

 boxes of utility grade fruit from the box filler were delivered to working 

 height by an elevating belt conveyor. Here the topper leveled the box, arrayed 

 the top apples in an orderly arrangement, added fill-in apples from a nearby 

 box, and pushed the box forward toward the lidding machine. 



- 13 - 



