18 BULLETIN 1416, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
Small fruit weighs more than large sizes. Some varieties weigh more 
than others. 
A standard barrel usually contains from 300 to 500 apples. A 
barrel of A-21% and up of leading eastern market varieties, usually 
runs from 350 to 400 apples to the barrel. Use of secondhand flour 
barrels is a doubtful economy since they are above legal size, are 
seldom clean, and are not easily headed up. Old barrels make a poor 
appearance in the market and such packs often sell at a discount. 
askets or any shipping containers, equipped with lid or cover, 
holding 2,150.42 cubic inches when level full, are recognized as a 
standard bushel by the United States Department of Agriculture. 
Many States have weight laws in conflict with those of other States 
and with the Federal law. The weights are based upon heaped 
measure, and the statutes prohibit the sale of standard baskets as 
bushel containers unless they contain the legal weight. This results 
in some relabeling of the weight or measure. 
Apples put up io sacks are a feature in some midwestern markets. 
The fruit is low grade and is sold to peddlers on the 100-pound basis 
at the car door. Apples do not keep well in sacks but are more easily 
handled than bulk shipments, and the cost of package and transporta- 
tion is low. 
The tendency in packages is to use the barrel for long-haul railroad 
shipment and for cold storage. The basket, hamper, and crate are 
favored for early apples and windfalls for short-haul shipment and 
are used extensively for summer shipments from extreme southern 
producing sections. Recent changes in various State grading laws 
tend to raise the standard of the basket pack and to extend its 
general use. | 
Many early apples come packed in bushel hampers, the standard 
dimensions being 15% ache top diameter by 9 inches bottom 
diameter by 19 inches slant depth. Hampers of the removable 
bottom type may be faced and packed with the top on, like a barrel. 
The basket as compared with i hamper will endure rougher usage 
and has more top surface for display of the fruit. The 6-basket 
carrier, with six 4-quart baskets, is another general package used 
more or less for early apples, as are 4-basket carriers and various small 
hampers and baskets, but the miscellaneous containers are losing 
ground to the bushel basket because of its convenience, ease of pack- 
ing, handling and loading, and its cheapness and general availability. 
A five-eighths-bushel basket is prominent in the Philadelphia market. 
The square box with slatted top is popular in some sections for 
trucking, orchard handling, and to some extent for storage. The 
standard western ane box is used in the East to a very limited extent 
for accurately graded fancy dessert fruit. A few growers use small 
papertaaedl boxes for choice fruit to supply a retail trade by parcel 
ost. 
E HANDLING 
The tendency is away from the hand-sorting tables (fig. 7) and 
toward the use of sizing machinery and other packing-house equip- 
ment (fig. 8) owned by growers, dealers, or associations. 
Considerable packing of apples is still done in the orchards or in 
farm buildings. Some growers pack in the orchards as fast as picked, 
using sorting tables, heading up the packed barrels or baskets, and 
