42 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



own capabilities, the needs of her locality, and not try to make people 

 who want cabbages buy roses, even tho the roses do please her esthetic 

 taste and cabbages offend it. 



The opportunity for women in Horticulture is as an uncultivated 

 fertile field awaiting a sower. The harvest is certain and will be in 

 accordance with their efforts. 



PRECOOLING OF SMALL FRUITS. 



J. S. BAILEY, LAKEWOOD, OHIO. 



There are two very important factors in preparing small fruits such 

 as strawberries, raspberries, and cherries for shipment. These are 

 (1) precooling and (2) careful handling. T shall discuss very briefly the 

 precooling of small fruits for Michigan. 



Up to the present time the Michigan grower of small fruits has been 

 at the complete mercy of the Chicago and Milwaukee markets and local 

 canners for the simple reason that he has been unable to successfully 

 ship his fruit to greater distances. It not infrequently happens that 

 with only a few hundred miles added to his shipping radius he could 

 realize two or three times his actual profits. 



Serious as this situation may seem at first, it is by no means as bad 

 as it looks. A solution has been worked out and proved successful, 

 and all that is necessary is the adoption of the solution by the Michigan 

 grower. This solution lies in precooling before packing for shipment. 



The small fruit growers of the Pacific coast have been able to ship 

 fruit b}^ the precooling method to points east of the Rocky Mountains, 

 a distance of not infrequently 2,000 miles. If this can be done in the 

 West, there is no good reason why our growers should not be able to 

 ship their fruit to St. Louis, Omaha, St. Paul, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and 

 other cities. What we want is a greater shipping radius and precooling 

 put that within our reach. 



The precooling plant may be put to another very good use during the 

 peach shipping season. No grower likes to send his peaches to an al- 

 ready glutted market. By placing the peaches in the precooling rooms 

 they can be quickly cooled down and held for one or even two weeks 

 until the market is in better condition. 



Let me warn you, however, not to expect too much from precooling 

 unless it is properly done. Careful handling is a very necessary pre- 

 requisite to precooling. Two or three bad berries in a crate may cause 

 the whole crate to appear from storage in bad condition. 



Precooling must be done promptly in order to check the ripening 

 processes and the growth of molds as soon as possible. It must be done 

 thoroughly also for half a job is no better than no job. Unless the fruit 

 is quickly brought down to a temperature of about 35° Fahrenheit the 

 work is practicallj' wasted. 



It has been found that plants used for precooling only have not l)een 

 successful because they can be operated only a small part of the year 

 which makes the overhead too high. In fact precooling has come into 

 ill repute in some sections of the West for this reason and from the fact 

 that plants of too small capacity have been constructed. To be highly 

 successful a precooling plant should be operated in connection with a 



