Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1903-03-28
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= California S Great .
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Orange Crop {: i: e.: - ''.;':
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daily on their long way across the con-
tinent tell how the harvest is progress
ing. The orange groves ring with the
songs of the pickers among the trees.
Everybody in the orange business in
California is in good humor this year.
The season has been warm, and the
rains have come just right for the
groves. There has not been the least
alarm about frosts, and, above all else,
the market prices for oranges are way
up. The grower in southern California
who does not make good money this
season ought to give il up.
Thousands of boys, men and women
are employed in gathering the product
of an orange orchard. Nowadays many
OF the trees are "cut back so as to
make them grow low, and the fruit is
therefore easily gathered. But there
are thousands of acres of trees which
are quite tall and these must be picked
from ladders laid against a tree.
The picker has tied to his waist aft
err the manner of an apron sack, into
which the oranges are dropped. They
are not pulled off the twigs, but are cut
off with a pair of shears. Then they
are placed in carrying boxes, which are
hauled to the packing house.
The fruit must be picked from the
color, only the ripper being selected
from a tree which is heavily laden. An
experienced eye tells the picker what
kind of fruit will do for picking, he be-
ing guided almost entirely by the tinge
which the fruit has taken on.
First of all the great wagon loads of
boxes are carefully Tailed to find
whether any fruit from the pickers in
the groves is missing. Then the boxes,
with their golden spheres, are set aside
for q three days curing. Fresh from
the tree an orange is still very much
alive, with the oil cells expanded and
the mystery of growth not yet suspend
ed. Cut off from the sap supply,
Shange takes place. The skin draws
closer to the pulp and gives off mois-
ture that would cause sweating if the
fruit were packed at once.
| After the wagon trip from the Or
chard it is necessary to give these dust
| stained travellers q bath. By the bushel
the newcomers are dumped into a long,
narrow tank of water at one end of
which is big wheel with a tire of soft
the lower edge works in connection
with another set of brushes in a small
er tank below, and the oranges, after
bobbing about in the big tank, pass be-
tween the wet brushes and come out
bright and clean.
After their bath the oranges are
| spread out in the sun to dry on long,
slanting racks. At the lower end they
roll off into boxes, to be carried away
| to the warehouse for their rest. An or
ange needs a deal of grooming. The
washing is not enough.
There must be a brushing, too, and
after the days of curing the oranges
are fed into a hopper, which drops
| them single file on TO a belt that runs
between revolving cylindrical brushes.
| This gives. them their smooth, shiny
hook. From the brushes they drop into
an elevator that lifts them to the sort
| ing table. where they jostle each other
in their hurry to get past the keen eye
of the sorter.
The sorting table has a gentle pitch,
and the divided stream pours single file
upon two narrow tracks of moving
ropes which gradually diverge. The
smallest oranges fall through first, the
next size further on, and the next slip
into bins below, graded in a dozen sizes
from those that run 3G0 to the box to
the great ones that cannot be spanned
with both hands and run eighty to the
box. Both extremes and the next four