Vol. LXXI. No. 4170. 
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 28, 1912. 
WEEKLY. SI.00 PER YEAR 
HOW TO PICK FRUIT. 
Handle It with Care Like Eggs or China. 
There are a great many things that are necessary 
in the handling of good fruit. If a person has the 
proper feeling of solicitude for the fruit, all of these 
things will come nat¬ 
urally. It may be likened 
to the feeling of the 
mother for the little 
child, always handling 
tenderly, watching it 
carefully from the tree 
to the package, always 
shielding it from any 
possible bump or bruise. 
Beside this tender care, 
lightness of touch and 
good judgment are also 
necessary. It is just as 
impossible to get good 
service from a rough, 
heavy-handed person in 
handling fruit as it 
■would be in a barber¬ 
shop. If a person, for 
instance, is rough and 
heavy-handed, no matter 
what instructions you 
give, he cannot seem to 
sense them; he will al¬ 
ways grasp the fruit 
roughly and pull it off. 
This, of course, always 
means finger-marked 
fruit. If pickers try to 
grasp two to four at 
once it also means bad 
bruises where they come 
in contact with one an¬ 
other. And then as to 
judgment, many people 
will drop an apple or 
pear two feet in a basket 
or barrel as readily, and 
with as little concern, as 
they would two inches. 
Then there are always 
the ones who cannot or 
will not follow instruc¬ 
tions, no matter how ex¬ 
plicit or essential the in¬ 
structions may be. Right 
here I am going to set 
an almost impossible 
task by saying, the first 
thing then is the selec¬ 
tion of the help, getting 
those that are somewhat 
fruit-minded, careful 
and intelligent, and who 
will follow instructions. 
In the case of apples, 
there are many things to 
take into consideration, 
one of the most essen¬ 
tial of which is quick 
handling; long exposure after picking is especially 
harmful to fruit that is going into storage. Another 
is the stage of maturity; while fruit must of neces¬ 
sity be firm and hard, yet I believe many have over¬ 
done this, and picked their fruit too green. A ma¬ 
ture apple is not only more attractive and has better 
quality, but mature fruit will keep better. No doubt 
many will differ from this, but storing fruit in differ¬ 
ent stages of development to keep for exhibition pur¬ 
poses convinced me of this some time ago. 
For picking I prefer baskets with smooth bottoms, 
that the picker may carry the apple into the basket 
and lay it down without hindrance. Picking into a 
grain bag, where they are partially thrown in and 
allowed to bump down on the ones that are already 
there is about the poorest way, especially as some 
use them, dragging the bag when partially filled up 
and down over the ladder and limbs until sometimes 
the fruit is only fit for cider. Many of the picking 
bags also have this latter objection. If one wants 
well-handled fruit, only one apple should be taken 
hold of at once, being careful to close the whole hand 
around the apple, grasping it as lightly as possible, 
lifting it quickly but gently around upward until the 
stem parts from the 
twig, carry your hand 
into the basket and lay 
the apple down. This is 
a knack quite easily ac¬ 
quired ; when apples 
pick easily you cannot 
pull them straight off 
without bruising many 
of them, which means 
injured fruit. There will 
also be many twigs 
pulled off in this way, 
which is still worse, 
meaning an injured tree, 
and a curtailment of fu¬ 
ture crops, and the hard¬ 
er the fruit picks, the 
more this is intensified. 
Of course these pre¬ 
cautions will count for 
naught if the same care 
is not exercised until 
the fruit is closed up in 
the package, in which 
cloth-covered tables, put¬ 
ting the basket on the 
table and rolling them 
gently out, handling 
again as carefully in the 
sorting and putting in 
the barrel or box as the 
case may be, all figure. 
This means also day or 
zveek help. The man 
who tries this sort of 
work with help picking 
by the barrel has my 
sympathy. But some will 
say this is too slow and 
expensive, and I answer 
to those, either change 
your minds or your bus¬ 
iness, for as long as you 
feel that way you can 
never hope for prices 
that will warrant you 
growing fruit. These 
same general rules will 
apply to all fruits with 
a little modification. For 
instance, pears, while 
they should always have 
full growth, should be 
picked full green and 
ripened off the tree, in 
the package or else¬ 
where. Peaches should 
be picked firm for long 
shipment, and directly 
in the package so far as 
possible. The same light grasping of the fruit, and 
turning up to cause it to part from the tree is essen¬ 
tial in every case. 
While I do not care to go into the matter of pack¬ 
ages, I do want to say a word about packing. There 
has been a great deal said about honest packing re- 
THE PICKERS IN A VIRGINIA APPLE ORCHARD. Fig. 414. 
BARRELING APPLES FOR A 3,000-MILE SHIPMENT. Fig. 415. 
