The walls are of 4x4 uprights, about eight feet apart, resting on 8x8x12 concrete blocks with a half inch iron rod imbedded in the concrete and countersunk in lower end of upright 4x4 to keep the latter in place.  Nail ties of 2x4 are used, and to these are nailed common lumber surfaced.  The roof consists of 2x4 or 2x6 rafters, usually three feet apart, with 1x6 boards spaced about three feet apart as sheeting.  The covering in this case is of galvanized corrugated iron, suitable length, of No. 26 gauge.  The doors of this building should be on rollers, and with two or more double doors on each of the four sides to give plenty of light and easy access to and from the building.  The roof and dry floor are the important parts of such a building, and you only need the walls as a support and occasionally to break off the wind when weather becomes chilly.  What you should avoid in a packing house is narrow doors, dark interior and access from only one or two sides.

Picking.—­I have found it most satisfactory to pick by the bushel, keeping a foreman in the orchard to see that crates are filled full, ladders and apples carefully handled.  Each picker is provided with tickets of a certain number which corresponds to the one opposite his name on the sheet tacked to a small board or clip carried by the foreman.  Each picker is assigned a tree, and his empty boxes are distributed to him from the wagon.  When filled the number is tabulated by the foreman and loaded onto the wagon and hauled to the packing shed.  Here they are stacked up and afterwards emptied onto the sorting tables or machine grader, and from thence into the barrels.

Hauling to Market.—­The barrels when filled are not allowed to lie around, but are hauled immediately to the car or storage.  Failure of winter apples to keep in storage may often be traced to the packing shed, where the apples stand in the crates or lie in the barrels for a number of days, perhaps a week or two in warm weather, before they are forwarded to storage.  Sometimes delays occur at the storage owing to rush, and apples remain sometimes for a week or ten days in cars before they are unloaded.  It behooves the grower not only to watch his own packing house for delays, but the storage company also.  In one instance I lost $1,000 on five cars of apples that were without refrigeration five weeks owing to the storage warehouse not being completed.  I knew nothing about this until two years afterwards.

Hauling to the station is done on wagons or motor trucks equipped with a rack that permits the barrels being carried lying down, but supported at each end of the barrel so that the weight of the barrel does not come upon the bilge.  They can be so racked up that one wagon will carry fifty-five barrels.  A three-ton truck will carry forty barrels of apples and haul forty more on trailer.  Such an outfit in one of my orchards makes five trips in one day a distance of four miles, traversing forty miles and