FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
55 
of ordinary gunny cloth; an oat sack will make four such 
picking sacks. 1 discovered after a little experimenting that 
it was a bad plan to let the ladders get over into the trees. 
The pickers have a stick with a hook on the end hanging upon 
the ladders, and to get the fruit at the ends of the long single 
limbs, they draw the limbs gently to them with these hooks. 
A man on the ground takes the sacks which the pickers let 
down and lays them down in a basket, pouring tliefn out 
by gently lifting the sack so as not to braise the Iruit. The 
wagon comes round through the orchard and carries the fruit 
to the packing house. 
I put up my fruit in boxes of three sizes, large, small and 
medium. I papered a large portion last year. This was done 
by girls and women. I used a paper about the same that you 
would use to cover oranges with. I pack in the California 
boxes. I find that papering the fruit in a box of pears costs 
five cents. That includes labor and cost of paper. I put 
them in cars at my depot, piling them seven tiers deep. This 
is a little too much to put in an ordinary car. I would not ad¬ 
vise putting in more than 600 boxes. I packed most of mine 
800 to the car. I laid the boxes in the car endwise, but I 
leave spaces between each tier ol about four inches. After I 
lay a tier I get strips and lay them across each tier. I so pile 
up to the top and ship in that way. I think it would be well 
for us to correspond with the railroad companies and request 
them to put better springs under their ventilator cars. By 
this means they would save us thousands of dollars worth of 
fruit in the season. The swinging of the cars is very hard on 
the fruit. 
G. L. Taber —What is the weight of the material used in 
making your boxes ? 
Mr. Harvey— It is very light material, weighing about two 
pounds to the box. It is still a question whether it pays to 
paper pears. It pays though, to ship in smaller packages. I 
would not ship my pears in barrels, although I have been re¬ 
quested by the commission men to do it. They do this for 
this reason: The retail dealers want it in barrels because they 
get more fruit at a given price. The same thing applies to pa¬ 
pering. The fruit dealer does not want it papered. If it is 
papered he gets forty pounds of fruit. If it is not papered he 
gets forty-nine pounds. The fruit goes in better condition 
when papered; the chances are lor better arrival. You must 
consider that you have to be out five cents for labor and paper 
with the chances of your fruit going to market in prime con¬ 
dition, against the disposition on the part of the retail dealers 
to get all the fruit they can for the smallest amount of money. 
Bruit packed in small packages, in a neat manner, beautifully 
