Bulletin Volume 90-107

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 edition. Excerpt: ...cents. To lessen the cost of harvesting and to overcome the difficulty of securing pickers in remote places, the berry harvester has come into use. This is a canvas tray, 124---Batting the berries. made by stretching the cloth over a light wooden frame about thret feet wide and four or five feet long. At the bottom, the frame projects upwards at right angles to the body of the frame to a distance of five or six inches, to catch the berries as they fall upon the canvas. A wooden shoe or runner is placed on the bottom of the apparatus to allow the operator to slide it along from bush to bush, as shown in Fig. 124. A long wire hook (Fig. 125) is used to pull the bushes over the tray or to lift up the fallen canes, whilst with the other hand the operator deftly cuffs off the berries with a paddle of wood or of wire covered with canvas and about the size of a butter ladle. The harvester is used only for the gathering of berries which are to be evaporated. The berries are allowed to become fully ripe, so that they fall easily, and the patch is gone over about three times. Much litter falls with the berries, but this is 125.--Batter's hook. Fully described in our Bulletin 57, 1893. 126.--Picker's ticket. readily removed by running the dried fruit through a fanning mill. There are few growers who use this harvester exclusively. It is often brought into requisition for the last picking, and it also has a most stimulating effect upon a lot of disaffected berry pickers. The device was first perfected by Mr. Benedict, of Dundee, although the idea seems to have originated with Uriah Hair, of the same place. There are various methods of keeping accounts with berry pickers. Perhaps thecommonest mode in large patches is a simple ticket, like Fig. 126, ...