1318 
tural industry in the country, have evolv- 
ed methods to insure the careful and uni- 
form handling of the product. 
In the handling of deciduous fruits this 
system does not prevail except in local 
areas. There are few central packing 
houses except in some of the grape dis- 
tricts in California. The greater part of 
the deciduous-fruit crop is packed in the 
orchard where it is grown, usually by the 
grower, except in some of the apple and 
other fruit districts in Oregon and Wash- 
ington. While certain standards of grad- 
ing and sizing are supposed to exist, they 
fall far short of the uniformity prevail- 
ing in the grades and brands of citrus 
fruits. When packed in central packing 
houses each grower’s fruit may hold its 
individuality until it is sold. The estab- 
lishing and maintaining of uniform 
grades and brands, except in the case of 
growers having a large acreage, is impos- 
sible under this system. It frequently 
happens that a carload consists of fruit 
from 25 to 50 growers, each packing and 
handling in his own individual way. It 
naturally follows that there is the widest 
variation in the packing and grading, al- 
though the shipping companies have 
standards to which the grower must con- 
form in a general way. 
The one great object in growing fruit 
is to sell it at a profit. Fruit growing is 
a business and as such is dependent upon 
business methods and principles quite as 
much as the manufacture and sale of 
boots and shoes, of steel implements, or 
of other articles. The manufacturer real- 
izes that the success of his business de- 
pends upon the proper distribution and 
sale of his products and he pays as much 
attention to the selling as he does to 
the manufacturing. It is the business 
of the fruit growers, either for themselves 
or through their agents, to study com- 
mercial methods and principles and apply 
them to their industry. With the estab- 
lishment of better distribution and busi- 
ness methods in marketing fruits, the 
dangers from overproduction will largely 
be avoided. 
This méans, first of all, the produc- 
tion of first-class fruits, uniformly and 
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 
honestly graded and packed and delivered 
to the consumer in sound and attractive 
condition. This is the business of the 
growers, and is the fundamental factor 
upon which depends the success of the in- 
dustry. Too often the growers have 
ascribed the cause of their difficulties to 
others—to the shippers, to the transporta- 
tion companies, to commission merchants, 
or even to the weather—losing sight of 
the fact that with the exercise of a little 
care and good judgment on their part 
many of these difficulties would not exist. 
The fruit growers of the Pacific coast 
have mastered most of the problems re- 
lating to the production of the fruit— 
such as relate to the various orchard 
practices of tilling, fertilizing, pruning, 
thinning and spraying. It frequently hap- 
pens that after a grower has used the ut- 
most care in producing his crop he nulli- 
fies all through the handling he gives it in 
preparing it for market. It does not matter 
how excellent his orchard practices are, 
if his fruit does not reach the markets in 
sound and attractive condition he may 
find that he receives no more for his crop 
than a more careless or slipshod neighbor, 
and he is at a loss to understand why. 
During the last eight years the Bureau 
of Plant Industry has conducted investi- 
gations of the factors which govern the 
shipment and storage of fruits. It has 
been shown by many experimental ship- 
ments that there is a direct relation be- 
tween the handling and the treatment in 
all the various processes of preparing the 
fruit for shipment and its behavior while 
in transit or storage. This has to deal 
with the picking, packing, hauling, and 
cooling of the fruit. 
Mechanical Injuries 
It is generally recognized that fruit 
must be handled with great care if it is 
to be kept sound, but few have realized 
until it has been demonstrated to them, 
how easy it is to injure fruit in hand- 
ling and how much injury is actually be- 
ing done. In the investigations conduct- 
ed by the Bureau of Plant Industry it 
was not uncommon to find 10 or 15 per 
cent of apples injured by rough handling 
