346 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



filler. The conclusion of former years that redwood sawdust is 

 superior to g^round cork for holding grapes in storage has heen fully 

 confirmed. The use of the sawdust both in shipping and storage 

 investigations on a rather extended scale shows that it will have to 

 be subjected to a sifting or fanning process to remove the fine dust 

 particles and slivers. These fine particles cling tenaciously to the 

 grape berries, especially at the pedicels, and spoil the appearance of 

 the fruit on the market. It is evident that unless some way can be 

 found to avoid this the use of sawdust can not be adopted on a 

 commercial scale. 



The continuation of these investigations is planned for the coming 

 peason. The storage experiments will be made on a larger scale and 

 the effect of prompt and rapid cooling wall be very carefully studied. 

 It has been shown that under the best conditions the cooling of the 

 grapes packed in sawdust will be relatively slow, owing to the insu- 

 lating effect of the packing material. It is planned next season to 

 overcome this disadvantage by cooling before packing. Additional 

 Work will be done at Fresno and Lodi, and a number of shipments 

 will be made for storage after arrival in the East. 



Lemon handling and shipping. — The investigation of the methods 

 of handling upon the keeping quality of California lemons was con- 

 tinued on a broader scale, and the work was extended to include a 

 series of shipping experiments, with a view to showing the effect of 

 careful grading and packing upon the carrying qualities of the fruit 

 in transit. The two lines of work were carried on simultaneously. 

 The field-handling investigations were done on a larger scale, and 

 districts and houses w^ere selected for this work which. had not been 

 included in former years. Forty-six experiments were made in fifteen 

 packing houses, the work consisting of a comparison of carefully 

 picked and handled fruit with the same fruit picked and handled 

 under ordinary commercial packing-house conditions. The effect of 

 washing was also studied. 



Analj^sis of the results of the experiments shows that the condi- 

 tion and maturity of the fruit materially influence the amount of 

 injury in handling and consequent deca}'. Green lemons are the 

 strongest, while those which are allowed to color or ripen on the tree 

 are the weakest. Lemons are picked to size, and the most desirable 

 are those which reach full size while green. Regular and sj'^stematic 

 picking is necessary to reduce the proportion of the weaker tree-ripe 

 fruit to a minimum. 



The shipping investigations included a comparison of fruit, care- 

 fully graded and packed, with the same fruit graded and packed 

 under ordinar}' packing-house methods. The work was done on 

 as large a scale as possible in order to represent commercial shipping 

 conditions. Forty-five shipments, consisting of 178 boxes, were sent 

 through to Washington, D. C. Inspections were made on the day 

 of arrival and one, two, and three weeks thereafter, the fruit being 

 held under ordinary open-market conditions. Represented in the 

 experiments were shipments from houses where the handling was as 

 carefully done as that done under the immediate supervision of the 

 government investigators. The ordinary packages of these houses 

 showed less decay than the average of all the carefully handled ship- 

 ments, while the shipments from houses where the handling was done 

 less carefully showed much heavier decay. 



