REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 75 



and other desirable qualities can be grown. Experiments are now 

 in progress with a variety bearing berries more than half an inch 

 in diameter. 



field investigations in pomology. 



Fruit marketing, transportation, and storage investiga- 

 tions. — These investigations have related primarily to the handling 

 of table grapes, lemons, and apples in California, oranges in Florida, 

 and peaches in Georgia, the object being to ascertain the causes of 

 loss through decay of fruit in transit; to determine methods of 

 handling it which will reduce the loss to a minimum; and to secure 

 information relative to the proper methods of caring for it prior to 

 and during storage. In the transportation work in California and 

 Florida, the behavior in transit of grapes, lemons, and oranges 

 handled under the prevailing commercial conditions was contrasted 

 with fruit so carefully handled that injury to individual fruits was 

 reduced to a minimum. The results in practically every case 

 emphasized the fact that loss in general is proportionate to the 

 amount of injury that the fruit receives prior to or during packing. 



The special peach problem considered in Georgia was the influence 

 during and after transit of cooling the fruit to a relatively low tem- 

 perature before shipping. Rather marked results favoring such 

 treatment were obtained. 



In connection with the transportation tests made under difierent 

 conditions, a large number of supplementary experiments, includ- 

 ing the effect of washing lemons, were conducted in various packing 

 houses. 



In 46 experiments with lemons in 15 California packing houses 

 in 1910, commercially handled washed fruit developed the greatest 

 amount of blue mold, commercially handled fruit not washed ranked 

 second, carefully handled lemons third, while carefully handled 

 unwashed lemons developed the least injury. 



The results of the experimental shipments of lemons from Califor- 

 nia to Washington, D. C, contrasting the behavior of carefidly graded 

 and packed fruit with fruit handled under commercial conditions, 

 show that less than one-half as much blue mold developed in the 

 former as in the latter. 



There is a wide difference in the amount of decay in fruit shipped 

 by packing houses employing different methods of handling the fruit. 

 Lemons packed in California by eight packing houses where careful 

 methods prevailed developed less than one-tenth as much blue mold 

 as fruit packed by eight houses under careless conilitions. 



Considerable demonstrational and instructional work has been done 

 incidentally by the men engaged in these investigations, resulting in 

 one locality in Florida in less than one-fourth as much decay after as 

 before instruction. 



