PREPARING THE LEMON FOR MARKET 389 



many of the lemon growers of California. Mr. C. C. Teague, manager 

 of the Limoneira Company of Santa Paula, Ventura County, the 

 largest lemon growing concern in California, has made close examina- 

 tion of practice among lemon growers, and concludes that the care- 

 lessness with which picking is done is almost criminal. In grove after 

 grove which he visited at least 50 per cent, of the values had been lost 

 by allowing the fruit to hang on the tree too long. Not only on ac- 

 count of large sizes would it have to be discounted 50 cents per box, 

 but the keeping quality of the lemon which is allowed to mature on the 

 tree is never good. Good results can not be obtained, even by the best 

 methods of keeping lemons, unless the fruit is picked at the proper 

 time and properly handled. Mr. Teague says a lemon should be 

 handled as carefully as an egg. 



If gathered before the color begins to turn properly cured lemons 

 may be kept for months, and they will improve in market qualities, by a 

 thinning and toughening of the skin, and by increase of juice contents. 

 This curing of the fruit, as it is called, is accomplished in many simple 

 ways. If the fruit is gathered and placed in piles under the trees, 

 where, with low-headed trees, it is completely shaded by the foliage, it 

 processes well and comes out beautiful in color and excellent in quality, 

 providing it is a good variety. Some have trusted wholly to this open- 

 air curing under the trees, merely protecting the fruit by a thin cover- 

 ing of straw, or other light, dry materials. Others let the fruit lie a 

 few days under the trees, carefully shaded from the sun, and place it in 

 boxes or upon trays, and keep it months in a darkened fruit-house, pro- 

 viding ventilation but guarding the fruit against draughts of air. 

 Gathering the fruit while still green and packing with alternate layers 

 of dry sand, has given excellent marketable fruit, but of course the 

 handling of so much sand is too expensive nor is it at all necessary. 



Much attention has been given to lemon storage in southern Cali- 

 fornia, and many curing and storage houses have been constructed. 

 Naturally there is great variation in design and method of operation. 

 The essential conditions to be secured are exclusion of light ; regula- 

 tion of temperature; ample ventilation, under control, however, so as 

 to prevent entrance of air which is too dry or too hot ; convenience and 

 cheapness of handling, for the lemon is expensive in handling at best 

 during the months of storage which is often desirable. Some of these 

 conditions are relatively of much more importance in the interior than 

 in the coast region, because heat and dry air reach occasionally ex- 

 tremes which are not experienced near the ocean which is a great 

 regulator of temperature and atmospheric moisture. For these reasons 

 a much simpler system of storage is now in large use in the coast dis- 

 trict, while in the interior suitable special buildings or basements are 

 apparently necessary. Anyone entering upon lemon handling should 

 certainly visit establishments now in satisfactory use and learn by 

 careful observation of their suitability to his purposes. 



Near the coast, and so far toward the interior as ocean influences 

 extend in adequate degree, the building of special curing houses has 

 been abandoned and some quite expensive structures have been turned 

 to other uses. An objection to house-storage lies in the fact that the 



