, 1917-08-30
HARVESTING GREAT
1877 APPLE CROP
Volunteer Crews Are Now Being
Organized Everywhere
Over Country.
HOW BEST TO Do THE WORK
Main Point Is to Put Fruit Quickly
Into Temporary Storage-locai
Clubs Aid Federal Food
Administration.


rms years apple crop VIII De mar
vested in most sections with volunteer
pickefs, men n Doys anu
girls, VINO Will be inteliigent ana inter
ested, but very likely quite unfainiiiar
with 1ruit picking. Inc crewsa are now
Delng recruited all over the country Dy
state OF DEFENSE, OF
commerce, women's organizations ana
other people help WIN the
apple crop.
Each grower should o get In touch
with the OF commerce. or
some other representative business or
ganization in his neares town, tell
how many pickers he will need, when
he Will need them, for how long, ana
what arrangements he make TOT
housing or boarding them.
When his crew of volunteer pickers
reports for duty he must open a little
school for a day or two, n give them
practical instruction in their new work.
Many of them perhaps have never
climbed into an apple tree, n even
those who have may not understand
that apple picking is a kind of work
that requires as much delicacy as gath
ering eggs.
Let the grower tell his pickers how
the skin of an apple. or any other kind
of fruit or vegetable, is like the tin
that protects canned goods. AS the tin
that incloses a car of tomatoes guards
the sterilized contents from the air,
and as even a slight pinhole in this tin
would allow the air to enter and carry
germs Of decay, so the skin of an
apple protects its flesh, which is per-
fectly sterile, and the least cut, even
a dem made by a finger nail. allows
germs to enter and start decay. A cut
so tiny that 1t can only be detected
under the microscope at picking time
will, nevertheless, start a germ inva-
sion which will show up later when
the apple is packed and put into stor-
age.
For this reason great care must be
taken in picking fruit. The grower
should show their pickers TO- to grasp
an apple and give it the skillful twist
that separates 1t from the tree. He
must caution them against dropping
the apples carelessly in the boxes and
baskets, and see that they nave pick
ing baskets and field boxes which are
free from splinters and nails.
This years crop will have to be
managed along somewhat different
lines in many sections. With a crew
of trained pickers and packers 1t is
customary to grade and pack much of
the fruit as fast as 1t comes from the
trees. There will probably be a short
age of packers, and many growers will
have to devote all their efforts to pick
ing the crop and getting it into tempo
rary storage first, and then packing 1t
later.
More good apples are spoiled every
year by carelessness between the time
they are picked and the time they are
packed than in any other way. Fail
nights are cool, but fall days are apt
to be warm. Apples are left in the or
chard several days and alternately
cool and heat with the changes in EN-
perature until their quality deteri-
crates. The proper way to care for
apples is to put them into common
storage as o as they come from the
tree. Almost any good tight building
will answer for the temporary storage
needed between picking and packing.
When fruit leaves the tree it on
tains vegetable heat just as an animal
has animal heat, and as the carcass of
an animal will spoil after killing I'M
less it is properly cooled. so fruit will
spoil unless cooled. With a tight shed,
into which fruit can be carried direct
from the orchard, the grower can use