The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1921-09-16
NEW RULES FOR
PICKING, SORTING,
PACKING, HANDLING
BRUISED APPLES POSITIVELY Y
CAN'T BE SHIPPED THIS YEAR.
FARM BUREAU ISSUES IN
STRUCTIONS TO PICKERS.
BRUISED APPLES CANNOT BE
SHIPPED

Shippers refuse longer to indulge
in shipping bruised, rough handled
apples such as have been presented
fer shipment during the past tive
years. While the state law does not
prohibit the grading and packing of
bruised -punctured apples it does
not compel shippers to accent such
apples in any grade; therefore ship
pers have united solidly against any
form of fruit acceptance that will en-
courage rough handling of apples.
TO Enforce 1920 Rules on Bruised
Apples.
The 1920 grade and pack rules en-
forced a provision that extra fancy
and fancy apples should be carefully
handled and free from bruises. The
shippers have agreed that this rule
will be enforced more rigidy this wear
than last and that the bruising of c
grade or placing of badly bruised ap-
pies in c grade will be prohibited
Growers at Fault in Harvesting
Methods.
A study was made by the Traffic
Association and Federal Bureau of
Markets in 1920 and it was found that
!, was possible to correct bad meth
ods of harvesting and eliminate near
" all bruising and injury to apples.
1t was found that apples picked by
certain plckers were almost free from
injury while apples picked by other
plckers in the same orchard were 35
per cent bruised and it was shown
that the careful picker was doing as
much work as the careless one.
A study of graders showed that
certain operators of graders bruised
over 40 per cent Of the apples in put
ting them across the sorting table
and grader while other operators had
practically no bruising. The same
was found on table and bench grad
ing. The machines and graders that
bruised the apples put out no more
fruit per day than did the carefully
operated ones.
Growers Indifferent; Help Careless.
The great source of damage to
packed apples last year was mostly
caused by Indifference or lack of
knowledge on the part of the orchard
list himself. In many cases he did not
realize the needs of careful work, 9TH
Ell cases he would not train his help,
enforce any form of rules and super
wise the handling cf the fruit.
Help has become extremely indiff-
erent and careless since the new sys-
tenn of picking and handling fruit by
the piece or box has been adopted.
Picking in bags by unsupervised help
has resulted in bad bruising and in
jury to apples. The worst feature of
the situation is that the orchard help
who worked by the box have but one
aim ahead of them, that is, many
boxes regardless of the condition of
the apple. This class of help be-
comes indifferent, difficult to super
wise and often places the entire crop
al the mercy of their careless and
sometimes domineering methods
Better Methods to be Adopted.
The farm bureau has made an ex-
tensive investigation of the fruit
handling situation. Investigation
among individual shippers showed that
last year much of the Wenatchee val
ley apples when placed on eastern
markets were only on a par with east
err apples. Bad bruising in picking
and packing had caused many grow
erc entire crops to go to the trade in
very spotted condition Apples from
graders showed up very bad in some
cases as did table sorted apples in
many other cases.
AS a result of committee meeting
and work of the farm bureau a great
educational campaign to educate all
orchard hands in better handling of
apples is being staged.
$4,000 Copies of Instructions Pre-
pared.
The Farm Bureau cooperating with
the shippers is preparing rules gov
erning picking. packing, sorting. haul
ing and handling of apples. These
are to be distributed free to orchard
ists in sufficient numbers to enable
them to give a copy of the instruc-
tions to each harvest hand working in
any department of the harvest work.
Each person hiring help should in
sist that the help read the rules Civ
en- him and be able to explain clearly
what each rule means.
Following is copy of the rules as
prepared by the committee on Bet
ter Harvesting Methods: