PICKING AND PACKING.
Description of sorting table used by D. S. Haines, Edwardsville, Wyandotte county, Kansas.
Our packing-house is on hilly land, and it is considerable trouble to haul apples to it. My packer now sorts and packs right in the orchard, using a sorting table. This table stands say three feet high and ten feet long, and three and one-half feet wide, with a common six-inch board on edge on the side. The men in picking use a ladder twelve to eighteen feet long. We did wrong in making our ladders; we could have bought them already made that were lighter and just the right thing. We set this sorting table among the trees; the men fill their sacks, emptying them on this table, which is carpeted; they barrel the apples up beside this table by letting them through an opening into a barrel. An apron is so arranged as to let the apples fall on it, and gently roll into the barrel without bruising. A man heads the barrels as soon as packed. In packing apples in the field we found that something solid was needed upon which to shake the barrels. The man who fills the barrels shakes them to make them more solid; then when pressed they bruise less. Our man can head about 100 barrels a day. In our rough country it is a great advantage to sort and pack in the orchard. We move this table about in the orchard. The expense to pick and pack a barrel of apples is about twenty cents.