It is even more difficult to give specific advice regarding the details of fruit-handling. A few definite matters may be brought to the reader's attention. The stem should be left on all fruit when it is picked ; lay it carefully in the picking receptacle, and pour it out with equal care. Place it in the shipping package gently, pack it firmly to prevent movement in transit, but be careful not to bruise the fruit in covering the package. Caps and cushions on apple barrels prevent injury, and a fruit-wrapper is a mechanical protection against bruising. Caution the pickers, especially, about pressing the fingers against the tender fruits, such as the peach or the small-fruits, or light-colored fruits like the Yellow Bellflower or Rhode Island Greening apples. It discolors the fruit, but may not cause decay unless the skin is broken. Pick the larger fruits in baskets or pails. Do not use a picking-bag for these fruits, except for the citrus fruits, as the fruit is more likely to be injured. Caution the pickers against striking the fruit on the spurs or branches in taking it out of the trees.
Place the fruit in the shade as soon as it is picked, and leave it exposed to the cool night air before packing, if the fruit is picked after ten o'clock in the morning. The fruit picked early in the morning may be packed at once, or quickly stored, if designed for cold-storage. The tempera ture of the fruit may be 10° to 30° cooler in the morning than at midday. This represents the measure of cooling that takes place in one to five days in transit in a refrigerator car. The use of the night air for cooling is especially adapted to the Pacific coast and to high altitudes, where there is a wide difference between the temperature of night and day.
Draw the fruit to the packinghouse or to the shipping point on spring-wagons, and provide each wagon with a tarpaulin, if the fruit has to be drawn some distance in the sun. There may be a difference of 5 per cent of decay in Florida oranges drawn on spring-wagons and on wagons without springs.
After the fruit is picked, ship it or store it in the quickest possible time. The ripening processes progress with a bound as soon as the fruit is picked, especially in hot weather. A cool tempera ture checks the ripening and retards the develop ment of the diseases. Do not pile apples in the orchard either before or after packing for any length of time, and do not allow the fruit to remain in the packinghouse, except in cool weather. Rough handling, coupled with a delay in shipping or storing the fruit, causes more of the large com mercial losses in storage or in transportation than all other factors combined.
The packing-house.
A large fruit-farm should be equipped with a packing-house so arranged that the fruit is un loaded from the field at one end or side of the house, and is taken out after packing at the other end or side. Packing-tables should be placed lengthwise between the entrance and exit to avoid carrying fruit around the tables. The house should be provided with doors and windows which can be opened at night. Small-fruits may be packed in temporary sheds in the field. Apples and pears that are to be shipped at once may usually be packed more cheaply in the orchard, on temporarily erected platforms and sorting devices. It is an advantage to have the sorting-tables on wheels if the work is done in the field. Fruit that is to be wrapped and packed in boxes, or is to be put up with special care, can usually be handled best in a packinghouse. The packing-house may be part of a storage-plant or may be erected separately.
The fruit package.
It is wise for the average fruit-grower to use the type of package and to follow the general style of packing employed in the packing of fruits in his neighborhood. Special types of packages are appli cable to a special trade, but it does not usually pay to introduce a new package or method of packing in the general trade unless the fruit can be shipped in large quantities, and can be skilfully advertised. The fruit trade is conservative and suspicious in its attitude toward innovations. Buyers become used to a certain style of package and packing for the fruits of a region. They calculate the charges of cartage, storage and other things on these types of packages, and they do not like to adopt a new method of reckoning. A slight change in the design of the label on an established brand of oranges from California has been known to cost the shipper several thousand dollars before the error could be rectified. This attitude of the fruit trade is due, in no small measure, to the large extent of dishonest packing and grading, leading the buyer to suspect that a new package 'or label or method of pack ing is a new way of deceiving the purchaser. The grower who ships to the general market will make the greatest progress by improving the grade of the fruit and the uniformity of the pack. The grower who ships to a special trade may use any type of package that is attractive. He may wrap the fruit, embellish it with tinsel, or fix it up in any other way that gives artistic effect.