FLORIDA .STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
67 
clipper cut. When we came to realize 
the danger of clipper cut fruit, it did not 
take us long to cut it out as far as possi¬ 
ble. 
This year we started in with our pick¬ 
ing gang; fifteen pickers, an inspector 
and a foreman. The foreman is a fellow 
of decision; he knows what he wants and 
he intends to get it. The inspector, too, 
is a conscientious man. . Mr. Ramsey, 
Mr. Tenney and one other man came to 
my grove and went through box after 
box of my picking and failed to find one 
clipper cut. I tell you, I felt a lot better 
this time than I did three years ago. 
Now, in regard to the clippers: I 
show you here a little sketch of what I 
used altogether this year; probably Mr. 
Burton is familiar with the Kyle clipper. 
With this clipper, I believe it is almost im- 
posible, with any care at all, for a picker 
to injure an orange. These clippers are 
made in California; everything good 
seems to come from California—that is, 
almost everything. 
There is another that is equally as 
good; that is the Somner-Hart clipper. 
Next is the question of what to pick 
in. I have used baskets, I have used pick¬ 
ing shirts, I have used the California pick¬ 
ing sacks and find them all, in a measure, 
unsatisfactory. We have a picking shirt 
at Dunedin that I think is the best thing 
of its kind. It has a pouch with an open¬ 
ing so arranged as to let the fruit down 
into the box very easily, but that was un¬ 
satisfactory. The latter part of this sea¬ 
son I ran across a darky with a picking 
coat. I watched him picking with it and 
watched him empty the oranges out of it, 
and he said he liked it very well. All the 
men who could get them were using them. 
There is no receptacle in the front for the 
oranges at all, but they go around to the 
sides and the back. You know, a basket 
is often in the way in getting around the 
tree. Lots of times the men are often 
placed where it is impossible to keep the 
fruit from being injured. You can dis¬ 
charge men for careless picking, but it is 
a hard matter to get other men to take 
their places. It is a much simpler prop¬ 
osition to furnish them implements to do 
good work in the first place. If they 
have the proper facilities, nine men out 
of ten will do their work right, but to 
have your work done as you want it, you 
have to give them these facilities. 
With this picking coat, the fruit is put 
into the side. It is just like a picking 
shirt except that this receptacle runs clear 
around the back. The man can move all 
around the ladder any way he pleases and 
the oranges are so placed that they are 
not in his way and it does not inconveni¬ 
ence him at all. Then, too, the opening 
is so placed that he cannot throw the 
fruit into the coat. 
There is a hook underneath the lap of 
% 
the coat, and when the coat is full, he un¬ 
snaps the ring and pours the fruit out one 
side; then he unsnaps the ring on the 
other side and lets the fruit on that side 
out. Then he buttons it up and goes back 
to work. The coat in the instance I spoke 
of was made out of bedticking. 
A member: Can you buy them already 
made, or do you have to make them, and 
have you ever used them? 
Mir. Skinner: No, I have not used 
them myself, but saw them used by one of 
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