Hi Doug,
Been a long time since the apple ranch days.
In the 1950's-60 in our case, the boxes were owned by us as they never left the ranch except on our truck to be hand dumped into tubs at the packing shed.
The field lugs (what you called half boxes) were supplied by the packing shed and hauled by us to the ranch for filling. The hand picked "eating apples" had to be handled more carefully to prevent bruising.
The field lugs were loaded and unloaded by hand onto and off of the truck. Once the lugs reached the packing shed they were handled by their people and I have no knowledge
as to what they did with them.
If I recall my history correctly.
Originally most boxes, lugs, and flats were contracted for and owned by the producers (farms). They would contact some small mill/box factory and order what they needed then use them to contain and
haul their crop to the packing shed or rail head. Every box was carefully stenciled with the farm name and the empties were returned much as your milk can descriptions.
Later as farming moved into mass producing and the packing companies became major forces in the food industry this system became unmanageable. The co-ops (packing companies) were formed and these companies
would supply the boxes needed to each of "their" co-op farms. This worked well but soon the large co-ops were having trouble getting the sawmills to commit to large orders for box shook. They solved this problem by going out and buying their own sawmills.
One of the best known in Northern California was "FRUIT GROWERS SUPPLY COMPANY" who by the 1940's owned sawmills/box factories in Hilt, Susanville, Westwood, and Burney, California.
Definitive dates are hard things to pin down but this box supply and ownership gradually emerged through the
post depression years. By the late 40's good Pine lumber was becoming more scarce and more expensive so alternatives were sought. Perhaps you remember the veneer era in the 60's where wood veneer (usually Fir) was held together with twisted wire and formed into crates. As far as I know these were used primarily in the valleys of California for vegetable crops like lettuce. Of course even these eventually became too expensive and everything was changed over to cardboard.
Box shook production and box building from wood is pretty much a thing of the past now. In our area in the 1900-1950 era there were probably at least 50 box factories at one time or the other, now I know of only one.
The one is a real exception to the rule they are a family owned (since 1897) steam powered sawmill with a box factory that has been in production since 1946. Instead of fruit boxes, they now produce gift boxes for wine, cheese, CD's and audio books, as well as other specialty items from timber grown on their own land.
The Pacific Coast box industry is a vast subject and there are several good books about it.
Later
Rick Marty
