FRUITS—SETTING AND DROPPING 
10—NAILING UP: 
(a) The nailer should be thoroughly 
familiar with the rules because he is the 
last person to handle the box before the 
lid is nailed on. It should be his place 
to turn back to the packer those boxes 
that are not properly packed; those that 
are too high or too low, or those in 
which pack has been changed. He should 
also be able to tell whether the sizes are 
mixed and if so send them back for a 
repack. Unattractive packs, that is, those 
in which the fruit has been poorly 
wrapped, should not be accepted by him. 
(b) Care should be taken by the 
nailer not to injure the fruit in the pack- 
box by the manner in which he nails it 
up. 
11—TIERING ON RANCH: 
(a) Wherever possible the nailer 
should stack the nailed up boxes away in 
such a manner that each size, grade and 
variety will be separate. 
(b) The 10-lb. cherry boxes should be 
stacked with top down. 
(c) Apples and pears should always 
be stacked on side with all the markings 
one way 
(d) Prune crates, strawberry crates 
and peach boxes should always be stack- 
ed so that the weight comes on the 
cleats; all stamped ends should be one 
way in stack. 
12—HAULING INTO WAREHOUSE: 
In loading wagon with fruit to be tak- 
en to warehouse or to a car, each load 
should contain boxes of the same size, 
grade and variety as far as possible: that 
is, do not mix sizes, grades and varieties 
in a load if a load can be made up other- 
wise. 
There are certain places in the ware- 
house marked off for each variety, each 
size and each grade. If in making de- 
liveries to the warehouse two or more 
varieties, two or three grades of each 
variety, and six or ten sizes of each 
grade are made in the same load, there 
can be only a few boxes to go into each 
stack. Consequently when fruit is load- 
ed into car, only a few boxes of that one 
load can be run into it, and when returns 
are made on fruit it will be found that 
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the one load may be divided into eight, 
ten or even more parts and sent out in 
that many different shipments. 
SETTING AND DROPPING OF FRUITS 
One of the discouragements in fruit 
growing is the uncertainty which attends 
the formation and development of fruit 
buds. Failure to set fruit even though 
the trees bear an abundance of blossoms, 
the dropping of immature fruits, the 
biennial bearing habit of certain apples 
and unfavorable weather at blooming 
time, are common and seemingly unpre- 
ventable drawbacks to profitable fruit 
growing. The Biblical injunction “to 
dig about and dung the trees” may be 
obeyed both literally and figuratively and 
yet the trees may fail to blossom, or to 
set a crop, or the fruit drops, or wind, 
rain, cold or frost may destroy the em- 
bryonic fruits. Indeed, seemingly, the 
better the culture, the greater the retro- 
gression in sexual reproduction, and the 
forces set in motion by the cultivator in 
no way nullify the effects of bad weath- 
er. 
Roughly the above problems fall under 
two heads’ First, those having to do 
with the formation of fruit buds; sec- 
ond, those having to do with the devel- 
opment of the buds. 
Controlling Fruit Buds 
Can the fruit grower influence the 
formation of buds? Though he cannot 
wholly control the formation of buds, 
he can at least greatly influence their 
formation. We may lay down as the first 
principle having to do with the formation 
of fruit buds, one founded on the exper- 
ience of fruit growers with practically 
every fruit: that plants develop fruit 
buds only where there is a store of food 
materials in twigs and branches. An- 
other statement to much the same effect 
is that plants will not form fruit buds 
when the food material is being largely 
used in the production of new wood and 
new leaves. 
Many facts and horticultural practices 
substantiate the statements just made. 
Thus, trees unduly luxuriant in growth 
do not set fruit; plants without sufficient 
food for both wood and fruit bearing do 
