192 Strawberry-Growing 



through the loaded cars. The cooling room should be 

 heavily insulated and a temperature somewhat below 

 freezing maintained, usually about twenty-three degrees. 

 The refrigerator car and the cooling room are connected 

 with a canvas hood so that the fruit does not become 

 warm when loading. A plant costing about $1500 will 

 cool one or two cars daily. In the cold air blast method, 

 large fans force air over ammonia or brine refrigerating 

 coils ; then it is conducted into the car near the middle and 

 distributed by means of deflectors and baffles. It is with- 

 drawn from the car through the end hatches by an ex- 

 haust and then passes over the cold coils again. To 

 pre-cool a car in four or five hours, a temperature of 

 eight to ten degrees must be maintained. It is difficult 

 to cool the entire load uniformly. As soon as the berries 

 in the middle of the packages reach a temperature of 

 thirty-five or forty degrees, which is as low as they 

 can be held in transit, the air blast is shut off and the 

 hatches closed. Pre-cooling is desirable when straw- 

 berries are to be shipped a long distance, but it has 

 been used very little thus far, mainly because of the 

 expense. The cooling-room method is practicable for 

 large growers or small shipping associations; the chief 

 disadvantage is that it necessitates an extra handling 

 of the fruit. The equipment required for air-blast pre- 

 cooling is so expensive that it is practicable only for 

 the largest shipping associations and for transportation 

 companies. 



Cold storage. 



When berries are shipped to reach the market on 

 Saturday they should be in refrigerator cars so that if 

 necessary they may be carried over Sunday in the car. 



