The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1917-09-13
4-Minute Men,
what Our Enemy
Really Is
F. o. BLANCHAR
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY AT
ELECTRIC THEATRE
HOW TO PICK APPLES
WITH VOLUNTEERS

Food administration officials this
week, in discussing the apple situation,
said in their opinion that this year S
apple crop will be harvested in most
sections with volunteer pickers, men
and women, boys and girls who will be
intelligent and interested, but very
likely quite unfamiliar with fruit pick
ing. The crews are now being recruit
ed all over the country by state Coun-
clls of Defense, chambers of commerce,
women's organizations and other peo-
pie anxious to help with the apple crop.
Each grower should now get in touch
with the chamber of commerce, or some
other representative business organiza-
tion in his nearest town, tell how many
pickers he will need, when he will need
them, for how long, and what arrange
ments he can make for housing or
boarding them.
When his crew of volunteer pickers
reports for duty he must open little
school for day or two, and give them
practical instruction in their new work.
Many of them, perhaps, have never
climbed into an apple tree. and even
those who have may not understand
that apple picking is 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 encloses a can of tomatoes
guards the sterilized contents from the
air, and as even a slight pin hole 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
perfectly sterile, and the least cut,
even dent made by finger nail, al
lows germs to enter and start decay.
A cut so tiny that it can only be de-
tected under the microscope at picking
time will, nevertheless, start germ
invasion 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 growers
should show their pickers how to grasp
an apple and give it the skillful twist
| that separates it from the tree. He
must caution them against dropping
the apples carelessly in the boxes and
baskets, and see that they have pick
ing baskets and field boxes which are
free from splinters and nails.
This years crop will have to be man.
aged along somewhat different lines In
many sections. With crew of trained
pickers and packers it is customary to
grade and pack much of the fruit as
| fast as it comes from the trees. There
probably will be shortage of packers,
and many growers will have to devote
all their efforts to picking the crop and
getting it into temporary storage first,
and then packing it 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. Fall
nights are cool but fall days are apt to
be warm. Apples are left in the orch,
ard several days and alternately cool
and heat with the changes in tempera.
ture until their quality deteriorates.
The proper way to care for apples is to
put them into common storage as soor
as they come from the tree. Almost
any good tight building will answer fol
the temporary storage needed between
| picking and packing.
When fruit leaves the tree it con.
tains vegetable heat just as an anima
heat, and as the carcassS Sof an anima
will spoil after killing unless it is
properly cooled. so fruit will spoil un
less cooled. With a tight shed, intc
which fruit can be carried direct from
the orchard, the grower can use the
cool nights of autumn to take the heat
out of his fruit. Doors and window:
of the temporary storage shed should
be opened at night to admit plentiful
currents of cool air, and when the SUI
comes up and the outside air grow:
warm again this storage place should
be closed to exclude the warm outel
air as much as possible, amd keep th'
fruit nicely cooled. If apples are han
died in this simple and sensible wa!
they will have prime keeping qualit!
and the work of grading and packing
can be postponed for several weeks.