In the meantime all loose or inferior bunches are raked down through the openings in the grading tables and received in sweatboxes below, to be either further dried or to be stemmed and graded at once. In packing several grades of layer raisins, the grading of the bunches should be made at this table. No great choice in selecting the bunches should be left to the packer, as his time should alone be occupied with the packing of his box. The best way is to have differently colored scales for number one and number two layers, and when taking them out of the sweatbox assort them at once by placing them in different trays. The graders can never be too careful. No moist raisins, no small ones, no red and poor raisins, should ever be allowed among a better quality. They will lower the grade of the whole box, while the good quality of high-grade raisins will not raise the grade of a generally poor box. Thus, while the many good raisins in a poor box are not paid for according to their value, the few poor raisins which will be accidentally or carelessly smuggled in a good box will lower the value of the whole. Few packers will sufficiently understand this, which is really the principle of all good packing, and which should be scrupulously adhered to. Even inferior size berries, if otherwise ever so good, should be carefully clipped from the large-berried bunches. It is astonishing how quickly the buyer will notice a few small berries, and how readily he will ignore the value of the largest raisins in the box.
Packing Layers, Top-up Method.
—As with packing the loose raisins, there are two methods, the top up and the top down. The top-up method can be as little recommended in this case as in the former, but as it is used by many of the packers I will here describe it: The trays containing the five-pound layers are placed in front of the packer on the packing table, so as to be within easy reach of the packer. The trays or frames with the sliding bottom are now used. The first move is to place one of the inner paper wrappers in the tray, and next the layers are placed in the frame as carefully as possible. There are two ways in vogue in which this is done. One of them is to crowd the raisins to one side,—“bunch” them, so to say, beginning at one end of the tray and gradually working towards the other end. This is the wrong way, which I am sorry to say is used by very many packers, who desire speed above everything, thus sacrificing care and quality and even appearance. Raisins packed this way point their ends upwards in a slanting way, which not only detracts from their appearance, but causes them to get entangled in each other. Such bunches when pressed will generally break, and, when lifted out of the box afterwards, will be very different from what they were when they were placed there in the first instance. The raisins, whatever method is used, should always be placed flat on the bottom of the tray. Care should be taken to arrange them so that they will fit, and only very few broken bunches should be allowed to fill unoccupied corners or spaces in the box. It is better even to leave such spaces empty than to tear up good bunches in order to get the small quantities needed, or in using inferior berries to fill up the holes.
Riverside, Showing Orange Orchards and Raisin Vineyards.
When at last the tray is full, and all the five pounds of raisins from the weighing tray are in, the upper surface should be smooth so as to require as little pressure as possible. When full the trays are taken to the press and stored on a side table until actually used. The presses are generally arranged for four trays. These are now placed under the press, a follower is placed on the top of every tray, and only sufficient pressure applied. Frequently too much pressure is used, and the raisins are flattened out to their greatest possible extent, many even crushed and so broken that the juice runs out. All such crushed raisins will sugar in a few months, and the whole box containing them will spoil and deteriorate in value. If, again, the raisins have been properly pressed, they will keep for months or even years. After the trays have been sufficiently pressed, which generally is accomplished in one minute’s time, the pressure is released, the follower removed, the folders turned over the raisins, and the trays removed to the boxing table, on which they may be allowed to accumulate until the boxer is ready to fill his boxes. On this table the final packing or “making up” of a box is done. It takes four of these five-pound frames to fill one whole box. Each tray is in its turn placed over a box, the sliding bottom is quickly removed, and the five-pound layer drops down in the box undisturbed. Every fourth frame should, in addition to the common paper wrapper, have labels and fancy paper pasted on the folders, or, as is sometimes done, an extra fancy folder or wrapper is placed on the third layer, and on the top or inside of it the fourth layer is dropped. Each layer will thus be found in its own wrapper, but the upper layer will have two, the outside one of which is fancy. Fine layers should have a waxed paper immediately above the raisins, in order that the moisture or sugar from them may not spoil the labels. On the top of the waxed paper the chromo or label is placed. The box is now ready for nailing.
Packing Layers, Top-down Method.
—This method I advocate as the most proper one to use. Thin galvanized-iron trays with a drop bottom are used. On the top of the drop bottom is placed a heavy follower of metal. White’s facing-plate, turned over, can be used to great advantage, even where no facing is required. The choicest bunches are now selected and spread evenly on the bottom of the tray; other bunches are placed on top of them, and so on until the tray is full. Great care must be taken in packing so as to make the bunches fit each other and lie solid; otherwise they are very apt to be disturbed, or they will require too heavy pressure to be kept in place. When the tray is full, it is gently pressed, and the pressure kept up for a few seconds. A loose zinc plate is then placed over the tray, the latter is turned over and placed over the box, in which the necessary wrapping papers have been previously placed, the loose zinc plate is quickly withdrawn, and the contents fall into the box. The heavy follower keeps the top layer steady, and with a little care the raisins are not disturbed.
The top-down method for packing layers has the following advantages over the top-up method. It gives a smooth surface on which to pack the top layer, without necessitating pressure to first create such a surface, the packing being done on a hard plate. The wrappers are not soiled, as they are not first placed in the frames. The packer is enabled to pack and select his choicest bunches for the top layer while he has plenty to select from, and any odd berries and broken or smaller bunches come naturally in the bottom of each layer. In the top-up method all such odds remain for the top, where they must go in, in order to make up the required five pounds.
A raisin-packer averages seventy-five trays of five pounds each per day, for which she is paid two cents each. Some pack more than this; but very excellent packing proceeds slower, and a packer of very choice layers can only pack twenty-five trays of five pounds each per day, for which a correspondingly higher price is paid. In Malaga, a trained and expert packer receives between two and three dollars per day. In California, they do not receive any more. In our raisin district, the girls are rapidly becoming expert packers, and the same ones are reëngaged year after year by the same packing-house.