Excerpt from Apple Sorting Methods and Equipment One of the most costly phases of work connected with packing and warehousing apples is that of sort ing or grading the fruit. At this point the color, appearance, and quality of the pack are evaluated. Each season in Washington State, where this research was conducted, enough apples to fill approximately 40 million boxes pass over the sorting tables of more than 250 packing plants. At each of these tables 6 to 12 people are employed, depending on the type of table and size of packing operation. Operators of packing plants could realize substantial savings if they could reduce the number of workers required to perform this operation, or increase the output per worker. During the past few years the Pacific Northwest apple industry has experienced changes in plant layout, handling equipment, and methods, as well as a change in the type of pack. In the future, emphasis will be placed on more precise grading of apples, not only in the Pacific Northwest but in other major apple producing areas. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.