Chapter 15

Ripening, Gathering, Handling and Marketing the Fruit

Tomatoes ripen and color from within outward and they will acquire full and often superior color, particularly about the stems, if, as soon as they have acquired full size and the ripening process has fairly commenced, they are picked and spread out in the sunshine. The point of ripeness when they can be safely picked is indicated by the surface color changing from a dark green to one of distinctly lighter shade with a very light tinge of pink. Fruit picked in this stage of maturity may be wrapped in paper and shipped 1,000 or 2,000 miles and when unwrapped after two or ten days' journey will be found to have acquired a beautiful color, often even more brilliant than that of a companion fruit left on the vine. Enclosing the fruit while on the vine and about half grown in paper bags has been recommended, and it often results in deeper and more even coloring and prevents injury from cracking, but the fruit so ripened, while more beautiful, is not so well flavored as that ripened in the sun. But Americans are said to taste with their eyes, so that in this country, fruit of this beautiful color will often out-sell that which is of better flavor though of duller color.

The tomato never acquires its full and most perfect flavor except when ripened on the vine and in full sunlight. Vine and sun-ripened tomatoes, like tree-ripened peaches, are vastly better flavored than those artificially ripened. This is the chief reason why tomatoes grown in hothouses in the vicinity are so much superior to those shipped in from farther south. After it has come to its most perfect condition on the plant the fruit deteriorates steadily, whether gathered or allowed to remain on the vine, and the more rapidly in proportion as the air is hot and moist. That it be fresh is hardly less essential to the first quality in a tomato than it is to such things as lettuce and cucumbers.

=Gathering.=--As is the case with most horticultural products, the best methods of gathering, handling and marketing the fruit vary greatly with the conditions under which the fruit was grown and how it is to be used, and it requires the best of judgment to gather it in the stage of maturity in which it will give the best satisfaction, under the conditions and for the purposes for which it is to be used. It is impossible to give exact rules for determining when the fruit is in the best condition. This can only be learned by experience, guided by a knowledge of the ripening habit of the fruit, which not only varies somewhat in different localities, but with different varieties. In the extreme South, fruit is picked for shipment before it shows more than the slightest tint of color at the blossom end; the depth of color which is considered as indicating shipping condition deepens as we go north and nearer market.

Generally the fruit should be left on the vine no longer than will permit of its becoming fully ripe by the time it reaches its destination and is exposed for sale. When the fruit is to be shipped any distance the field should be gone over frequently, as often as every second or third day or even every day in the hight of the season, and care taken to pick every fruit as soon as it is in proper condition. When it is to be sold in nearby markets or to a cannery the exact stage of maturity, when picked, is not so important, although it is always an advantage not to gather until the fruit is well colored and before it begins to soften. Some growers for canneries make but three or four pickings, but in this case it is well to gather the ripest fruit separately.

In picking and handling great care should be taken not to mar or bruise the fruit, and the stems should be removed as the fruit is picked to prevent bruising in handling. A bruise or mar may not be as conspicuous in a tomato as in a peach, but it is quite as injurious. It is a great deal better for pickers to use light pails rather than baskets, the flexibility of the latter often resulting in bruises. It is an advantage to have enough of these so that the sorting can be from the pail, but if this is not practical the fruit should be carefully emptied on a sorting table for grading. It should first of all be separated with regard to its maturity. A single fruit which is a little riper or greener than the remainder may make the entire package unsalable. It should also be graded as to freedom from blemishes or cracks, and as to size, form and color. It is assumed that the fruit for each package is to be of the same variety, but often there is quite a variation in different fruits from even the same vine; the more uniform in all respects the fruit in a package is the more attractive and salable it becomes. There is no fruit where careful grading and packing have more influence on the price it will command.

I know of a certain noted peach-grower in northern Michigan who grew, each year, some 2 to 5 acres of tomatoes for the Chicago market. It was his custom to pick out about one-tenth of the best of the fruit, putting it into small and attractively labeled packages; the remainder of the crop was sorted over and from one-tenth to one-fifth of it rejected and fed to stock or sold to a local cannery. The remainder was sent to Chicago with his selects, but as common stock, and usually brought more than his neighbors received for unsorted fruit; but the check he received for his selects was usually as large as that for his commons, thus giving him about 33-1/3 per cent. more for his crop than his neighbors received for their equally good, but unsorted, fruit--to say nothing of what he received for the rejected fruit and the saving of freight which, he said, was usually enough to pay the actual cost of sorting.

Tomatoes are usually classed as vegetables but, when ripe, they require as careful handling as the most delicate fruits and are as easily and seriously injured by bruising and jarring. Just how this can be avoided and the fruit gotten from the vine to the possibly distant consumer in the best condition will vary in different cases. Tomatoes from the South (Fig. 29) are generally marketed in carriers which, though varying somewhat, are essentially alike and consist of an open basket or boxes of veneer holding about 10 pounds of fruit. When shipped, two, four or six of these are packed in crates made of thin boards, so as to protect the fruits but give them plenty of air.

=Packing.=--Most of the fruit sent to New York and Philadelphia markets from New Jersey and other northern states is in boxes or crates holding about 5/8 of a bushel and so made as to facilitate ventilation when piled in cars or warehouses. Fruit for the canneries is usually picked and handled in bushel crates of lath. These various packages are usually sold in the flat and the grower puts them together as is convenient before the crop comes on; but in many sections where there are large shipments they are often put together by the package dealers. Fig. 30 shows tomatoes as packed by the Ohio experiment station.

=Fruits after frost.=--Sometimes when there is a great quantity of partially ripe and full grown green fruit on the vines which is liable to be spoiled by an early fall frost, it can be saved by pulling the vines and placing them in windrows and covering them with straw. Of course the vines should be handled carefully to shake off as little fruit as possible. If the freeze is followed by a spell of warm, dry weather the fruit will ripen up so as to be quite equal to that shipped in from a distance. A second plan is to pull the vines and hang them up in a dry cellar or out-house, or lay them on the ground in an open grove of trees, or beneath the trees of an adjoining orchard.

Still another plan is to gather the green fruit and spread it not more than two to four fruits deep in hotbed frames, which are then covered with sash. Local grocers are usually glad to pay good prices for this late fruit, and in seasons of scarcity I have known canners to buy thousands of bushels so ripened at better prices than they paid for the main crop.