CRAB APPLES. 
Crab apples are very ornamental as trees, and the fruit is useful for 
preserves and jelly and for cider. The best preserving sorts are the Red 
and the Yellow Siberian and Transcendant, while for cider making the 
Hughes’s Virginia Crab, Waugh’s Crab and Jones’s Cider are the best. 
GATHERING AND MARKETING APPLES. 
There is no one point in apple-orcharding in which there is so gen¬ 
eral a need for information as in the gathering and handling of the apple 
crop. The practice of the growers in the best apple sections of the State 
in handling their apples is simply ruinous to their profitable sale. Shak¬ 
ing the apples from the trees and gathering them from the ground, and 
then dumping them in bulk into the body of a springless wagon to sell 
to dealers in the mountain towns is a common practice. And when the 
, dealers get hold of them they dump them loosely into large crates, and 
ship them to the towns of the eastern part of the State, where they usually 
arrive bruised and worthless, and the shippers wonder why North Caro¬ 
lina apples do not sell in competition with the Northern fruit. Apples 
of all sizes and colors, good and bad, knotty and perfect, are dumped into 
the same receptacle, a crate not fit to ship apples in at all, and the only 
wonder is that they bring anything at all. And they do bring very little 
when good fruit is abundant. Go to a groceryman in Raleigh and price 
apples, and he will say: “ Here are some good Northern apples for so 
much, and here are some stuff from the mountains of North Carolina, 
which you can have for half price or less.” And the difference in the 
price is not because the apples from the mountains are inferior sorts to 
the others—though there are usually too many poor Limbertwigs among 
them—but because of the condition of the fruit. The Northern apples 
are handled and shipped by men who know how to pack and handle 
apples and they come to hand in good condition. They are properly 
culled and the barrel has in it but one variety of apple, and the name is 
branded on the barrel, for they are not shipped in crates to be cut and 
bruised for lack of tight packing. 
HOW TO GATHER APPLES. 
Never shake the fruit from the tree and never pack for market any 
apples that have fallen from the tree. Gather every apple by hand and 
place it carefully in a basket. The apple growers North use ladders, 
made on the place, of a light pine pole split some distance from the butt 
end, and rungs stuck in to keep the lower end apart, while the entire 
upper part is but a single pole with rungs stuck through. This kind of a 
ladder can be stuck in anywhere on the tree and makes it possible to 
reach all the apples. It is simply like a long wagon pole with rungs 
stuck through. The gatherer takes a light basket and lets it down by a 
rope when full. The barrels are taken into the orchard and packed right 
there. The name of the apple is marked on the bottom of the barrel, 
which is to be the top when opened. A layer of apples is then placed, 
stem down, on the bottom all over, so as to make a good appearance 
when opened, but the same quality must run all through the barrel. 
The apples are then poured carefully into the barrel, which is 
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