Two women on their knees gather fruit, possibly apricots or plums, from the ground. In the era before mechanized tree shakers, growers allowed the fruit to drop onto the softened soil below. "Once upon a time, growers smoothed and softened the soil beneath the trees and let the prune plums drop before gathering them to take to the dehydrator. This method required three to four 'pickings' to strip an orchard completely of fruit." From: "California Dried Plums and Prunes" : http://www.californiadriedplums.org/AboutDriedPlums/GrowingAndHarvesting/ (accessed 12/01/10). Once upon a time, growers smoothed and softened the soil beneath the trees and let the prune plums drop before gathering them to take to the dehydrator. This method required three to four “pickings" to strip an orchard completely of fruit. Source: California Dried Plum Board. Scanned with Microtek Scanmaker 1000XL Pro; as a 600 dpi TIFF image in 8-bit Grayscale. Auto Level image processing applied and compressed into JPG format using Photoshop CS3.
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