FIG. 29—FLORIDA TOMATOES PROPERLY WRAPPED FOR LONG SHIPMENT
(Photo by courtesy of American Agriculturist)
I know of a certain noted peach-grower in northern Michigan who grew, each year, some 2 to 5 acres of tomatoes for the Chicago market. It was his custom to pick out about one-tenth of the best of the fruit, putting it into small and attractively labeled packages; the remainder of the crop was sorted over and from one-tenth to one-fifth of it rejected and fed to stock or sold to a local cannery. The remainder was sent to Chicago with his selects, but as common stock, and usually brought more than his neighbors received for unsorted fruit; but the check he received for his selects was usually as large as that for his commons, thus giving him about 33-1/3 per cent. more for his crop than his neighbors received for their equally good, but unsorted, fruit—to say nothing of what he received for the rejected fruit and the saving of freight which, he said, was usually enough to pay the actual cost of sorting.
Tomatoes are usually classed as vegetables but, when ripe, they require as careful handling as the most delicate fruits and are as easily and seriously injured by bruising and jarring. Just how this can be avoided and the fruit gotten from the vine to the possibly distant consumer in the best condition will vary in different cases. Tomatoes from the South (Fig. 29) are generally marketed in carriers which, though varying somewhat, are essentially alike and consist of an open basket or boxes of veneer holding about 10 pounds of fruit. When shipped, two, four or six of these are packed in crates made of thin boards, so as to protect the fruits but give them plenty of air.
Packing.—Most of the fruit sent to New York and Philadelphia markets from New Jersey and other northern states is in boxes or crates holding about 5/8 of a bushel and so made as to facilitate ventilation when piled in cars or warehouses. Fruit for the canneries is usually picked and handled in bushel crates of lath. These various packages are usually sold in the flat and the grower puts them together as is convenient before the crop comes on; but in many sections where there are large shipments they are often put together by the package dealers. Fig. 30 shows tomatoes as packed by the Ohio experiment station.
FIG. 30—GREENHOUSE TOMATOES PACKED FOR MARKET
(By courtesy Ohio Experiment Station)
Fruits after frost.—Sometimes when there is a great quantity of partially ripe and full grown green fruit on the vines which is liable to be spoiled by an early fall frost, it can be saved by pulling the vines and placing them in windrows and covering them with straw. Of course the vines should be handled carefully to shake off as little fruit as possible. If the freeze is followed by a spell of warm, dry weather the fruit will ripen up so as to be quite equal to that shipped in from a distance. A second plan is to pull the vines and hang them up in a dry cellar or out-house, or lay them on the ground in an open grove of trees, or beneath the trees of an adjoining orchard.
Still another plan is to gather the green fruit and spread it not more than two to four fruits deep in hotbed frames, which are then covered with sash. Local grocers are usually glad to pay good prices for this late fruit, and in seasons of scarcity I have known canners to buy thousands of bushels so ripened at better prices than they paid for the main crop.