The best floor for the apple house is concrete. The next best is to cover the ground with coal cinders and lay 2x4 flat on the cinders, filling between them with cinders to a level and nailing the floor boards to these 2x4. This gives a good solid floor at little expense.
The walls are of 4x4 uprights, about eight feet apart, resting on 8×8×12 concrete blocks with a half inch iron rod imbedded in the concrete and countersunk in lower end of upright 4×4 to keep the latter in place. Nail ties of 2×4 are used, and to these are nailed common lumber surfaced. The roof consists of 2×4 or 2×6 rafters, usually three feet apart, with 1×6 boards spaced about three feet apart as sheeting. The covering in this case is of galvanized corrugated iron, suitable length, of No. 26 gauge. The doors of this building should be on rollers, and with two or more double doors on each of the four sides to give plenty of light and easy access to and from the building. The roof and dry floor are the important parts of such a building, and you only need the walls as a support and occasionally to break off the wind when weather becomes chilly. What you should avoid in a packing house is narrow doors, dark interior and access from only one or two sides.
Picking.—I have found it most satisfactory to pick by the bushel, keeping a foreman in the orchard to see that crates are filled full, ladders and apples carefully handled. Each picker is provided with tickets of a certain number which corresponds to the one opposite his name on the sheet tacked to a small board or clip carried by the foreman. Each picker is assigned a tree, and his empty boxes are distributed to him from the wagon. When filled the number is tabulated by the foreman and loaded onto the wagon and hauled to the packing shed. Here they are stacked up and afterwards emptied onto the sorting tables or machine grader, and from thence into the barrels.
Hauling to Market.—The barrels when filled are not allowed to lie around, but are hauled immediately to the car or storage. Failure of winter apples to keep in storage may often be traced to the packing shed, where the apples stand in the crates or lie in the barrels for a number of days, perhaps a week or two in warm weather, before they are forwarded to storage. Sometimes delays occur at the storage owing to rush, and apples remain sometimes for a week or ten days in cars before they are unloaded. It behooves the grower not only to watch his own packing house for delays, but the storage company also. In one instance I lost $1,000 on five cars of apples that were without refrigeration five weeks owing to the storage warehouse not being completed. I knew nothing about this until two years afterwards.
Hauling to the station is done on wagons or motor trucks equipped with a rack that permits the barrels being carried lying down, but supported at each end of the barrel so that the weight of the barrel does not come upon the bilge. They can be so racked up that one wagon will carry fifty-five barrels. A three-ton truck will carry forty barrels of apples and haul forty more on trailer. Such an outfit in one of my orchards makes five trips in one day a distance of four miles, traversing forty miles and carrying 400 barrels of apples. One and one-half miles of this is over a well-graded dirt road, and two and one-half over brick and concrete pavement. In our Clay County, Illinois, orchards we have two 12-25 gasoline tractors that are used for cultivating during the summer and for hauling apples in the fall. These machines easily haul 110 barrels of apples on two wagons and make two trips a distance of five miles from orchard to town.
Loading Cars.—I am surprised at the lack of knowledge of how to properly load barreled apples into cars. Over half the cars going to market are improperly loaded. The best way is to place all the barrels crosswise of the cars with lower tier to the right side of the car, and the second tier the left of the car with the bilge lying in the hollows of the lower tier. The third tier should be at the right side again directly over the lower tier. If a fourth tier is added they should be at the left and directly over the second tier. In this way your apples are loaded to carry with the least injury to the apples. Being uniformly loaded they are easily counted from the top after they are in the car, and your loader can verify his wagon load count after the apples are all in and thus prevent mistakes.
Packing Apples.—The packing season is a busy one. Often the grower finds himself short of help, and when this is hard to get he is sure up against it if he wants to do a good job of packing.
First make your estimate of the crop you have to harvest. If inexperienced, get an experienced man to help you. You need this estimate for two reasons. You must determine the number of packages you need, which must be contracted for in advance, and you need to know how much labor you need to get the crop in within the time limit. You should not begin harvesting too early, for immature fruit, poorly colored, brings a lower price, and you do not want to be so late that the fruit mellows up or drops from the trees before it is gathered or is caught by a freeze.
I will relate a little experience of mine in the latter connection. In the autumn of 1911 I had a heavy crop on a hundred and twenty acre orchard. The season was rainy, and we lost six days during October, which put us across the line into November with our picking. The last days of October or first of November brought a severe freeze when the mercury went to twenty, or twelve below freezing. This lasted two nights and one day. The apples were frozen absolutely solid through and through on the trees. As I had over 12,000 bushels, all Willow Twigs, unharvested, it was an anxious time for me. The second day was cloudy with the temperature at thirty-four degrees, just freezing, and the following night it remained at the same point, for we were enough interested to note the temperature. This continued up until noon of the third day, when the frost was out of the apples and we proceeded with our picking. These apples kept perfectly and were sold the next May at $4.50 per barrel. There was no perceptible difference between the apples picked before or after the freeze. Two years later my experience was different. We were caught with 1,000 bushels on the trees by an equally severe freeze. The sun came out bright the following morning, and by noon the temperature was up to fifty degrees. The apples turned brown and looked like they had been baked. They were good only for vinegar. The variety in both cases was Willow.
In packing apples it is a good plan to use a corrugated paper cap on both ends of the barrel, in addition to a waxed paper next to the apples on the face end, stenciled with the name of the grower and his postoffice address. Use uniform sized apples for the face as much as possible, and of good color. The face is permitted to be 20 per cent. better than the contents. Drop facing I consider best for the second layer rather than double facing, as it holds the face apple in position better and presents a more solid face to the buyer when opened. The barrels should be filled uniformly from bottom to top with an even grade of fruit. No reputable packer will attempt any fraud upon the purchaser in this respect. In tailing off the barrel preparatory to putting in the head, the better way is to face the apples on their side in concentric rings with the color side of the apple up. I would not select these apples as to size or color, but let them correctly represent both as they run through the barrel. There can be no objection, however, to your putting the colored side of the apple up. We should always look as well as we can, and first impressions if good, while not always lasting, are desirable in the apple business of inspecting packages. In filling the barrel care must be taken to gently settle the apples into place by shaking the barrel from time to time as it is filled. After the bottom is faced off the corrugated cap is placed on the apples, with the smooth side next to the apples, and the head pressed into place. It is well to use headliners to secure the heads and not trust to the use of nails alone. Have some regard for the man who has to open these heads in storage or the salesroom. Try a few yourself if you never have, and you will use headliners for him who comes after if for no other reason.