A Member: Do you use very nearly the same size apples in a barrel, or do you put large ones at the top and bottom?
Mr. Dunlap: I have heard of growers doing that, but the only way to pack a barrel honestly is to select your facers—the law permits that they may have 20 per cent. advantage of the rest of the barrel. The rest of the barrel ought to be graded uniformly throughout. I don't mean by that they should all be apples of three or four inches diameter, but that they run above a certain figure with a minimum of 2-1/4 or 2-1/2, depending upon the variety you are packing. In running them over graders, which sizes them, all over that size go over the apron and into the barrel.
A Member: Do you face both ends of the barrel?
Mr. Dunlap: Yes, sir, we do. We do not undertake to select for the bottom or tail of the barrel apples as to size or color, but we do this—we lay those apples around in concentric rings and turn the color side or best looking side of the apple up and as nearly level as may be across the top and just the right height, so that when they are pressed into the barrel the barrel will be tight enough so as not to have the apples loose, and yet not have them bruised in the heading. It takes practice to do that just at the right height.
The barrel should be shaken as it is being filled. If you do not shake often when being filled and settle the apples down so they reach the place where they belong, no matter how tight you make your barrel, when it gets into the car and on the train and in motion that constant shaking and jar will loosen the apples, and you will have a slack barrel.
A Member: What sort of apples go to the canneries?
Mr. Dunlap: That, of course, depends upon the season. If the season is such that the No. 2 apples are not worth any great amount of money, they will buy everything except cull stock below the strictly No. 1 apple and use them in the canning factory. If the price is high they will probably take the drops, those dropped in picking, or good sound drops. We usually make a practice of cleaning up our drops once a week off the ground in picking time. Before we begin picking we clean the ground entirely and run that through the vinegar factory, into the cider mill, and after that is done any apples that drop in picking they are disposed of in various ways, sometimes to the evaporator, sometimes to the canning factory and sometimes they are shipped in bulk if they are good sound apples and not injured in any way except perhaps for a few bruises.
A Member: In debating the question of the grower and the cannery we are anxious to know just how far it is practical to use apples—what apples we can use after grading them, say, for instance, into Nos. 1 and 2? Can we use a deformed apple? For instance, do the canners in your country buy deformed apples—I mean lacking in roundness?
Mr. Dunlap: They can use them; they are a little more expensive to handle when you put them on the fork to peel them. Of course, they have to use the knife on them afterwards in those places where they are not perfect, cutting out any imperfect spots on them. But as a rule they require pretty fair quality of apple for cannery and above a certain size. They wouldn't want to use anything less than two inches in diameter, and from that on, and they get as good apples as they possibly can. They have to limit themselves as to prices according to how much they can get for their product.
A Member: What grader do you recommend?