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Show Hurricane Reports Peach-Pear Crop Greatest In Years, 67 Carloads Shipped 4 Eighteen Days Sees Most Of Crop Shipped; E. 0. Muir Major Buyer By KATHERINE LARSON' HURRICANE, Utah. For 18 days beginning Aug. 7, this town and vicinity saw its greatest peach and pear harvest. Bounteous years have been experienced by Hurricane Hurri-cane orchard men, but never such a bumper year as this. According Accord-ing to Wayne Hinton, fieldman for E. O. Muir, who contracted the major part of the peaches, 67 carloads of the fruit were shipped to neighboring states: Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska,' during this time. Sold Carloads of Pears In addition Mr. Muir sold 6 carloads of pears for the Washington Washing-ton County Cooperative Fruit Growers Marketing association, which brought in an average of $1.60 per bushel for orchard run. Each carload contained 528 bushels. bu-shels. Thus, through Mr. Muir's hands passed 37,488 bushels of U. S. No. 1 peaches and pears. The peaches were of two sizes and measured two inches and larger, and 1 inches to two inches. The larger ones sold for $2.15 F. O. B. at Cedar City, and netted the grower $1.65 per bushel, bu-shel, while the l3,i inch peach went at $1.90, with a net to the grower of $1.40. Peddled peaches brought $3.00 per bushel at Moroni and other northern towns. The peddlers reported re-ported that it was a mere matter of unloading their trucks, instead of a tedious house-to-house campaign cam-paign as in years past. Mr. Hinton estimated that approximately ap-proximately 20,000 bushels were peddled throughout the state, besides be-sides the 2,200 bushels of pears hauled by Milne Truck Line into Salt Lake City. Dixie Elberta peaches, whether they be Queens, Lemons or Hales, hold a coveted place in most Salt Lake markets. For this reason, 9,000 crates of especially sorted and faced fruit were also shipped to exclusive buyers by E. J. Graff. Skaggs Safeway Stores also purchased 25 carloads of U. S. No. l's to be sold in Idaho and Utah. Labor Only Problem Labor furnished the only problem prob-lem during the harvest period. Sixty Indians and 27 Japanese were hired to fill the gap. Most of the Indians came from Cedar City and Moccasin, Ariz., while the Japanese were recruited from Delta and Richfield. The Indians In-dians were slower pickers than the Japanese. Most of the picking this year was done with a picking bag, which enabled the pickers to use both hands. The price paid the P'ckers was 10c per bushel. Clark Ballard, past president of the FFA holds the record with 93 bushels picked in 9 hours. |