The Delta independent., 1912-09-06
PUTTING UP A POOR FRUIT PACK.

One of the requisites in the pro-
ductipn of good fruit and the one
most neglected in this country is in
the failure to properly thin. Most
of our fruit trees habitually overload
themselves. We do better job of
thinning Peaches than any other fruit.
We have to do it in order to get
a marketable size and to prevent the
trees fror- breaking down, but few
of us thin them hard enough. Our
pears are sadly neglected. They
should be thinned and thinned hard.
The small pears all of which are limb
CALLED and imperfect in shape and
all others that will not make a five
tier pack should be removed, leav-
ing on only what the tree can de-
velop into good sized fruit of as
perfect shape as possible.
The apple should be gone over in
very careful manner. thinning out
all clusters not leaving two apples
that touch and leaving on only as
many as the tree can mature into
as many fancy apples as possible.
Never prop up a tree or allow
limb to be broken by overlooking.
In the case of the peach the tree is
exhausted and the soil robbed of its
mineral elements in the production
of a large crop of pits. With the
apple and pear the soil is robbed of
a large amount of potash and phos-
u ot
of fruit NEST of which from being
small and imperfect in shape, limb
CALLED. ETC., is unfit to ship and is
of little value. We are thus rob-
bing the soil and exhausting the
trees to little profit.
Large size is one of the prime
requisites in putting up a profit
able pack. In peaches the extra fancy
or 60 to the box brings &c box
more than the extra or 80 to the
box, and extra 1Oc more than the
fancy or 80, and the fancy from 10c
to &c more than the 108. In apple
the box usually running from 72 to
"a usually sell for a dollar a box
more than apples running $50 to tina
box. Large applecs of most varieties
are of much better quality than the
little ones. This is especially true
of the Jonatan and White Winter
Pearmain- Among the few first class
apple growing sections of the
UP the poorest pack.
do not include toher sections of
the Western Slope, for 1 have seen
carloads of apples from the cele-
brated North Fork country that GER
tainly were put up in good shape
and, l am not sufficiently well ac-
quainted with the pack in other To-
ca1ities. The main cause of the poor
pack is because the growers do the
work instead of the association. i
demning all private packs as poor.
Many growers try to put up good
hOnset pack as far as putting up good
fruit is concerned, but no attempt
is made to grade fer size and color.
All above the required "a or 2 "
luCHSS III uldHetST are luTOWn III
promiscuously.
Other growers fail fer want of
experience or lack of knowledge OF
what a good pack shall be or how to
put it up. Then again. it must be
confessed that some deliberately put
up fraud pack by placing the small
and wsormy apples in the center of
the box, in misbranding them and in
various other ways. One of the SER
iOus difficulties lies in the fact
that our packers are paid by the
box and they are more interested in
the number of boxes they can turn
out in a day than in what they put
in the boxes. The same objections
apply to tie growers pack of
peaches and in addition some of
the growers put their small and in
freior peaches in the bottom layer.
Poor wrapping. slack packing, poor
grading. etc. are frequent faults
j. H. Devine.