1911. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1003 
“STEC^LINftE’ , is the name given to small sugar beets 
grown for seed. The seed from highly pedigreed plants 
is sown very thickly in narrow rows and the little inch 
beets are used to produce commercial seed in large 
quantities. 
HANDLING THE APPLE CROP. 
As Done In Northern New York. 
The apple harvest, of course, begins with the first 
early fruit, and lasts until the last Winter varieties 
are all gathered or snowed under. This is a general 
statement that in too many cases is borne out by 
actual facts, but to come to the point at once, it de¬ 
pends much on what is to be done with the fruit hpw 
it is handled. The first Winter apples to be picked 
are generally Rhode Island Greening. If they are to 
be placed in cold storage they should be 
picked as soon as the seeds are a light 
brown color, if the apples are well de¬ 
veloped. I recall one year when many 
were stored before September 10, but 
as a general proposition the larger part 
of the month of September is gone be¬ 
fore they are all stored. If on the 
other hand they are to go into common 
storage they may hang on the trees 
until fully ripe to good advantage. Red 
varieties are generally left on the trees 
longer, so that they may become as 
well colored as possible before picking, 
as, other things being equal, good color 
improves the grade of the fruit. 
The ladders mostly used, locally, are 
made in Marion, as there has been a 
ladder factory here for nearly 50 years, 
and there are now two, and many lad¬ 
ders are shipped from here every year. 
The ladders are made of the best qual¬ 
ity of basswood and ash lumber, the 
sides being basswood, and the rounds 
ash. The sides are planed on a taper 
from the bottom to the top, the size 
varying with the length. The rounds 
are also much larger at the bottom, 
and also much longer than at the top, 
making a very strong and also light 
ladder. They also vary in length from 
seven or eight feet up to 35 and even 
more, as apple trees in this section vary 
much in height; but the tendency at 
present is toward dishorning, or lower¬ 
ing, the tops of the high trees, and 
heading down the smaller ones and 
keeping them within reasonable bounds. 
The pickers use various receptacles for 
picking fruit; probably the most com¬ 
mon form is a grain bag tied from 
one top corner to the bottom corner 
with a longer or shorter strap, to suit 
the individual, and with a wire hoop 
or a stick sewed into the top to hold 
it open. There are also several makes 
of picking sacks and coats on the mar¬ 
ket ; some of them are very good. In 
the accompanying illustration, Fig. 401, 
the men have a kind of apron sack hung 
in the top to hold them open, and a slit 
on onq side near the top to pour out the 
fruit. As will be seen, the ladders are 
placed carefully against the trees, so 
that the picker can gather a good arm’s 
length on each side, and pick from the 
ground up. The ladder is then moved 
a space farther, and when the tree has 
been circled in this way it should be 
practically cleaned, if not too large, in 
which case it is sometimes necessary to 
put the ladder up in the middle of the 
tree, or else climb among the branches 
to finish the tree. The amount of fruit 
that can be picked by a good hand va¬ 
ries much, depending on size of trees, 
size of fruit, and very much on how 
thick the fruit hangs on the trees. On 
some trees 25 bushels would be a good 
day’s work, while on others more than 
100 bushels could be picked in the same 
time. When fruit is being barreled as 
fast as picked, a sorting table is gener¬ 
ally used, as in Fig. 402, the apples be¬ 
ing placed either directly on the table 
by the pickers, or else in bushel crates, 
if the table happens to be full at the time, or for 
convenience, and may be drawn to the barn or pack¬ 
ing house in them and barreled there; in fact a large 
per cent of the crop is drawn to market in this way, 
the dealers claiming that they get a much more uni¬ 
form pack if they have their own men pack the 
fruit, than if the growers do their own packing. The 
sorting table is a simple affair, anywhere from five 
to eight feet long, and from three to five wide. The 
top is generally slatted so that very small apples 
drop through, also any leaves that might be among 
them. The front end is just high enough to set a 
barrel under, the other end about eight inches higher, 
just enough so that the fruit will roll towards the 
barrel. Two or more men can sort on such an out¬ 
fit. Many of the sorting tables have one end mounted 
on an old buggy axle, with the wheels on, and can 
be easily moved from tree to tree like a push cart. 
The apples are sometimes sorted into two grades, 
firsts and seconds, and the culls usually go to the 
evaporators. Many farmers also pick their fruit and 
pile on the ground in the orchard or in crates, es¬ 
pecially if they pick before the fruit is sold, which is 
often the case; but fruit handled this way will not 
do for cold storage. 
Fig. 400 shows a tree of Pippins, also the effects 
of thorough spraying with lime-sulphur and arsenate 
of lead. The owner, Mr. Chas. Pratt, tells me that 
this tree had given him but two barrels of clean 
fruit in 20 years; this year, with four thorough 
sprayings, it produced 12 barrels of No. 1 apples. 
A PIPPIN TREE SHOWING SPRAYING RESULTS. Fig. 400 
APPLE PICKING, LADDERS AND BAGS. Fig. 401. 
SORTING FRUIT, APPLE SORTER IN PLACE. Fig. 402. 
Mr. Pratt is one of those farmers who believes in 
specializing any line of work in which he engages, 
and can successfully handle a large farm. He has 
between 20 and 50 acres of fruit, and a glance at 
the trees shows intelligent care. The orchard where 
the views were taken was planted about 30 years 
ago, on a piece of land that is covered with lime¬ 
stone bowlders from the size of a bushel basket up 
to many tons weight; lying so thickly on the. ground 
as to prevent the land ever being plowed, and many 
of the trees had to be set out of line on account of 
the rocks. This orchard is a fine pro¬ 
ducer, and is kept thoroughly pruned 
and sprayed, as are all his orchards. He 
also has 32 acres in Red Kidney beans, 
and there are no weeds in them. His 
crop last season was about 600 bushels. 
He has a muck swamp, which is tho¬ 
roughly drained, on which he is har¬ 
vesting a large crop of onions, and has 
three acres of celery, which promises a 
heavy crop. He believes in not stinting 
any crop on labor, and keeps help 
enough to do his work as it should be 
done, and at the proper time. 
The apples shown in the cuts run 
about 10 barrels firsts, one of seconds 
and from half a crate to maybe two 
crates culls. Mr. Pratt attributes this 
to the fact that he owns his own sprayer 
and when spraying does a thorough job. 
Fie formerly hired his spraying done, 
and did not get satisfactory results. 
There is a point in this that it will be 
well to think over. Now, while the 
green fruit market naturally seems to 
be the main way of disposing of the 
crop, there have been times when the 
bulk of the crop went to the evapo¬ 
rators, and much still goes there and 
to the canning factories. The impres¬ 
sion seems to prevail that these indus¬ 
tries are rather small potatoes, and only 
use of the poor grades of fruit; this is 
a great mistake, for while a poor grade 
of apples can b§ worked up, they make 
a low grade of fruit, and no one likes 
to work them as well as good, sound 
fruit. The facts are that the factories 
often pay as good prices for “tree run” 
apples as the green packers. There are 
two large and one smaller canning 
plants in our town, and one of the pro¬ 
prietors told me three years ago that 
he had bought over 70,000 bushels of 
apples, and afterwards bought several 
cars from outside. Besides these out¬ 
lets for fruit, many of the farmers have 
evaporators of their own, with capacity 
of 50 to 500 bushels per day, and if 
dried fruit pays better than green, 
much will be evaporated. The fruit 
business is no snap game, but takes 
time, labor and patience to win out, as 
well as any other line of agriculture. 
Nearly every farm in this section has 
more or less orchard, and the ordinary 
farmer gathers his fruit with his regu¬ 
lar help, or with a little extra, during 
picking time, but the man with large 
orchards, and the specialists, have to 
depend much on the “transients,” who 
begin to appear a few weeks before they 
are wanted. They often go in gangs- of 
from four to 10 and hire out together. 
They want to pick by the day, or by the 
bushel, according to their own ideas,; 
This seems to be the solution of the 
labor question so far as getting the 
‘crop picked is concerned, at least at 
the present time, as many of them will- 
do large “stunts” every day if working 
by the bushel. Some of us would like 
to know where this fruit business is 
going to end. If, as I believe is the 
case, many people go without fruit, or 
pay from a nickel to a dime apiece for 
fine apples here in the United States, it assuredly 
would seem the growers should receive more than 
one dollar per hundred pounds, as is now offered for 
Greenings. J. a. crane. 
Wayne Co., N. Y. 
