raded 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 b