1908.] 



Colorado Fruit Industry. 



5i9 



as picked, so that it may be damaged as little as possible by 

 handling. 



Bilberries. — There is a large demand for bilberries or whortle- 

 berries, especially in Lancashire and Yorkshire, where the 

 demand usually exceeds the supply. They should be picked 

 when of a rich blue -black colour, with the bloom on the berries 

 at its best. This is usually in July and early in August. The 

 fruit should be sent to market in 1 gallon chip baskets, as recom- 

 mended for blackberries. 



Crab Apples. — The principal demand for this fruit comes 

 from manufacturers of jelly, who require the fruit unripe. 

 " Crabs " should be packed in 4 or 5 bushel sacks. A custom 

 prevails of rilling the sacks to their utmost capacity, and lacing 

 their mouths ; this should not be practised, as when sacks 

 are thus completely filled and laced a grip is not provided 

 as is the case when the sack is tied at the mouth, hence laced 

 sacks are thrown and pitched about in handling, and the contents 

 are bruised and thus rendered less valuable for making jelly. 



Sloes. — This fruit is ready for picking when it has a full rich 

 bloom. On no account should unripe green sloes be picked. 

 The best package, both for pulling and transport, is a 2-gallon 

 chip basket. Sloes are not so perishable as blackberries and 

 bilberries ; they may, therefore, be forwarded by goods train 

 unless ordered otherwise by the buyer. 



The Board have received, through the Foreign Office, the 

 following report on the fruit industry in Colorado, which 

 has been prepared by Mr. Thos. Erskine, 

 The Colorado Fruit His Majesty's Acting Consul-General at 

 Industry. Chicago : — 



For the last few years Colorado has 

 been coming to the front as a fruit-producing State. Its 

 principal valleys both on the eastern and western slopes of the 

 Rocky Mountains, together with the tributary valleys, all of 

 which are irrigated by the streams which run through them, 

 offer favourable conditions for the production of apples, pears, 

 peaches, plums, cherries and small fruit, and all these fruits 

 are produced in great abundance and of excellent quality. 

 On the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, principally 



