they come from the orchard.  These crates can be stacked up four or five deep, and there should be adequate room for these based on necessities.  There should be room for at least a day’s supply of apple barrels and a place to cooper them up by driving the hoops and nailing same.  There should be enough room to face and fill barrels and head them up and to stack up enough for half a day’s hauling ahead.

The size of this building will depend upon whether you are barreling 100 barrels per day or 1,000 barrels.  For the former a building 28x20 feet will answer very well.  For the latter amount 60x100 feet would be none too large.  This building should have skylights in the roof.  I build these of ordinary greenhouse sash about 3x6 feet, usually putting in two of these in each building on the north or east side of the roof, according to the slope, and directly over the sorting end of the table.  This will give you light an average of thirty minutes more each day and prolong the day’s work that much, or at least make it possible to do better work on cloudy days and in the evenings.

The building should be approachable on all four sides with the wagon, and doors either sliding or hinged should open at least ten feet wide for taking apples in and out.  For example, I have my sheds arranged to take the fruit as it comes from the orchard on one side of the building.  The number one apples go out one door, and in case I use a grader the number two go out another side.  The cider apples also take their route.  The fourth side is used for supplying empty barrels as needed.  Thus you see the necessity for getting to all four sides.  On the side where the filled barrels are loaded onto the wagon there should be a raised platform so that the loading can be carefully and easily done.  A bin for the cider or vinegar apples should be built with a roof on same.

Low-wheeled, platform wagons are needed to haul fruit from the orchard to the packing house.

The standard barrel of three bushels capacity is used generally by the commercial orchardist in preference to the box.  Good hoops are growing scarcer every year, and some, including myself, are using two or four of the six hoops required of the twisted splice steel wire variety as being both safer and more economical.  In transit or in storage they hold better and do not break and scatter the contents of the barrel over the car floor or storage warehouse.

The best floor for the apple house is concrete.  The next best is to cover the ground with coal cinders and lay 2x4 flat on the cinders, filling between them with cinders to a level and nailing the floor boards to these 2x4.  This gives a good solid floor at little expense.