FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
39 
half to a full packed box of oranges 
according to the system of handling, and 
provided with good hand holds at the 
ends. Never use bags for picking. Either 
baskets, tin or galvanized iron receptacles 
are the only ones on the market that are 
safe. The latest make of basket leaves 
little to be desired in that line. 
Send a light but strongly made step- 
ladder for every picker and a good ex¬ 
tension ladder to about every three men, 
if the trees are of good size. Most im¬ 
portant of all, send clippers that are 
strong and durable so that each picker 
can afford to own and care for the one 
he uses, and so made as to render it as 
near to an impossibility to clipper-cut or 
puncture an orange as possible and yet 
allow of cutting the stem snug to the 
calyx, or even slice a part of it from the 
fruit. 
Until within a very short time, there 
has been no really good orange clipper 
on the market. Now the need is fully 
met. It is best always to send an extra 
pair of clippers along, and also a jug of 
water, that time may not be wasted in 
trips back to the packing house in case 
either is needed. No man should be al¬ 
lowed to use a pair of clippers that is not 
in perfect order so as to do good work 
rapidly. 
With the foregoing equipment and a 
piece of chalk for putting their number 
on each box they pick, the pickers should 
start their work at the bottom branches 
and work up as high as they can easily 
reach; then take the step ladders and, 
without leaning them against the tree, 
clean it of its fruit to fourteen or fifteen 
feet from the ground. Above this, long 
ladders will have to be used; but the 
utmost care should be exercised not to 
jam the limbs and fruit out of place more 
than can be avoided; as where that 
is done much fruit is injured by thorn- 
ing, crushing, scratching, or being shaken 
from the tree. Do not allow pickers to 
pull on an orange to get it within reach 
of the clippers. Every orange should be 
so clipped that if the stem end should be 
firmly pressed against another orange, it 
could not injure it. 
The picker should be trained to clip 
three or four oranges, where hanging 
handily, before putting them in the bas¬ 
ket; which must be done carefully and 
without a drop of over a half-dozen inches 
at most. Don’t leave scattering fruit, 
but pick clean as far as you go, unless 
selecting for size or ripeness. Turn the 
fruit into the field boxes with care, keep 
all dead twigs and trash out of all 
receptacles and keep the fruit shaded 
from the hot sun while waiting to be 
hauled. In loading, see that no box is 
so full as to permit of injuring the fruit 
by placing another on top of it, or that 
any may roll off. 
If oranges drop so that injury is pos¬ 
sible, lay them out as culls. There are 
many methods of handling fruit at the 
packing-house. They should be studied 
and the one best suited to the individual 
needs adopted ; but there are some gen¬ 
eral directions that may apply to all cases. 
The packing-house should be arranged 
for the careful and economical handling 
of fruit, as little carrying from place to 
place as possible; as little lifting of heavy 
weights as need be and above and over 
all, plenty of light. The house, bins and 
runways should be kept reasonably clean 
and no rotting fruit be allowed to remain 
in them or in out-of-the-way corners to 
fill the air with blue mold germs. Every¬ 
thing that fruit comes in contact with— 
receptacles, runways, spouts or finger 
