AMERICAN-GROWN PAPRIKA. 
17 
HARVESTING. 
The pods should be uniformly ripe when picked. Although they 
usually begin to ripen early in July, quantities sufficient to justify 
picking are not usually found before the middle of the month. 
After the ripening season sets in it is generally necessary to pick 
about every seven days. (Fig. 7.) By picking thus frequently the 
curing houses are not overloaded and the crop is conveniently handled. 
In Hungary the pepper fruits are picked with the stems attached, to 
give opportunit}^ for stringing the fruits into long festoons, in which 
form they are hung up to dry. In South Carolina, where artificial 
Fig. 7. — Picking paprika peppers. The pods are piled on sheets at the end of the rows. 
heat is used in specially constructed houses, the stems are not needed 
and the fruits are picked without them. 
CURING. 
The processes of curing and picking peppers are closely related, 
in that the amount of peppers to be picked at any one time should 
not exceed the available drying facilities, and the curing barn must 
be so managed as to finish up each picking before the succeeding lot 
of pods requires the building. This means that a curing barn of 
a given capacity will serve a definite acreage of pepper field. As- 
