Historic Hood River
“Apple Picking in Earnest”
9-8-2021
Notes
Here’s another good picture of the apple harvest at A.I. Mason’s Liberty Home Orchard in Pine Grove. From the series of photos in the album I can see they initially pick into the buckets, then transfer to the crates, then the apples are individually wrapped in paper before being sealed in boxes for shipping.
nels
How many people do you count working on that one tree?
L.E.
Even the dog gets in on the picking.
Tom
… ? …. Add one dog .. and a youth up high ..
ArthurB
I count 16 humans and one canine.
cg
Do you think this is an actual group of workers or a social gathering posing and having fun picking apples? Are the women dressed in the same manner in the later pictures you mention?
cg
Here is more information about Albert I Mason from History of Early Pioneer Families of HR, Oregon:
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~westklic/aimason.html
ArthurB
I think this is the actual apple harvest, though they may be holding still for the camera. I believe friends and neighbors would lend a hand when a particular orchard was ready for harvest, so these may not all be “professional” pickers.
Marilyn
I think there's two dogs. Looks like it might be a corgi on the ladder on the right, below the guy in the white shirt.
kmb
It is like a “Where's Waldo?” picture.
L.E.
In this photo… http://historichoodriver.com/index.php?showimage=925 Steve r says there are 18 people and one dog.
And this photo http://historichoodriver.com/index.php?showimage=388 shows what the ground looked like before this tree was planted. A lot of hard work involved.
ArthurB
Funny– those are not actually the same photos. Tiny differences between this one and #925.
Steve R was always better at the “I spy” game than I was, even though I have the original scans to inspect.