\ 
22 BULLETIN 1416, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
In large-scale packing the work is divided, one crew facing the 
barrels, one filling, and another heading and branding. Frequent 
shaking down and tight pressing are insisted upon. ‘The most satis- 
factory packing houses are conveniently located and well lighted, 
with plenty of room for working and for temporary storage, and with 
equipment for grading, sizing, packing, and transporting the fruit, 
as complete as the 
quantity to be handled 
Inakes advisable. With 
increasing dependence 
on cold storage, packing 
houses with facilities 
for long storage appear 
to be considered not so 
essential. 
BASKET. PACKING 
The round bushel 
basket is gaining in 
favor because of con- 
venience in packing and 
handling. When the 
work is done in the or- 
chard, the fruit is often 
packed or poured di- 
rectly into the baskets, 
out meanwhile. Then 
it is shaken down and a 
follower is used; then it 
is ring faced, apples 
stem end up, with about 
2 inches bulge at the 
center. It is topped 
with a corrugated pad 
and a cover marked 
Fic. 11.—Sometimes the top ol ie is packed ring tail before with or Ow er’s name an d 
address, the name of 
the variety, the grade, and the size. The packing-house practice 
varies mainly in the facilities for more uniform and accurate sizing 
and grading when required. | 
THE‘EARLY PACK 
Early apples, especially when not packed in barrels, are more or 
less of a special class. Reports from large markets indicate that 
three-fourths of the early eastern crop is marketed in baskets or in 
packages other than barrels. It is partly the poor, irregular grading 
of the early crop that has given the basket pack its uncertain repu- 
tation. An informal survey of the Chicago market in 1923 indicates 
that about nine-tenths of the early apples in baskets would grade 
below A or No. 1. Many States exempt the basket, open box, and 
hamper from grading regulations, thus diverting much ungraded 
fruit to such packages, : 
the culls being sorted 
See 
