The Bureau of Chemistry advises very strongly against the practice of having the women who do the inspecting do the trimming also. They contend that inspecting and trimming should be two distinct and separate operations and each should be done by a different set of women. By this method the women on the sorting belt merely pick out all the tomatoes which are imperfect and throw them into receiving boxes which are attached to the framework of the sorting belt by a bracket, there being about four of these boxes to a table—two on each side. One or two women stand at each receiving box, pick out the defective tomatoes from this box, and trim out the bad part, which is dropped into a chute, which directs the material down to a drain underneath the table through which is flowing the waste water from the rotary washer. This stream, properly placed, has sufficient current to carry away the waste matter. The trimmer throws the good part of the tomato back on to the sorting belt. By using this system there is no lugging of boxes or buckets back and forth from the sorting table.
This method, which is the one approved by the Bureau of Chemistry, accomplishes the work more thoroughly than can be done if the inspecting and trimming are all done on the sorting belt by the same set of women. The minimum cost of sorting and trimming in this manner is from 2 to 3 cents per bushel, according to the government figures.
If the women on the sorting belt are to be used for both inspecting and trimming, a longer belt should be used than if inspecting alone is to be done. About 2 feet of belt should be allowed to each sorter.
Tomato Turning Device
Fig. 1.—Tomato turning device on sorting belt.
There is another feature which helps greatly in sorting, and that is a tomato turning device, which is illustrated in Figure 1. This device turns a very large percentage of the tomatoes if they are fed to the belt properly, that is, if they are spread out evenly and are not too thick on the belt. The turning device allows them to be inspected from all angles, and is described in Bulletin 569 of the U.S. Department of Agriculture as follows:
“For an apron (sorting belt) 18 inches wide, 14 pieces of ¾ inch iron pipe (1 inch outside) were cut, each piece about 7 inches long. About one-half inch from one end of each piece a hole was drilled through the pipe large enough to permit of the pipes being strung on a ¼ inch steel rod. In order to insure freedom of movement, a thin washer was placed between each pipe and the one next to it. The whole set was then suspended by means of the steel rod across the sorting apron with the lower ends one-half inch above the apron. A back-stop rod is put in behind the set to prevent the pipes from swinging back past the center. This was found necessary to prevent them from swinging so far back as to strike and gouge the oncoming tomatoes. * * * In operation the weight of the pipes is sufficient to roll the tomatoes over as they pass under.”
“In order to obtain satisfactory operation it is most important that the tomatoes do not cover more than 50 per cent of the apron area, otherwise they do not have room to turn properly. A test at one plant showed that 70 to 80 per cent of the tomatoes were turned each time they passed under a set of the pipes. It was found also that this turning device worked better on the open metal apron than on the canvas or rubber type, owing to the fact that the tomatoes slipped badly on aprons made of canvas or rubber.”