STORAGE 



STORAGE 



1733 



tion; in fact, the different varieties of apples require 

 different degrees of temperature, and it took a long 

 time to learn this. Again, it is almost impossible to 

 maintain the same temperature in all parts of a large 

 building or even in one large room. As a rule, each 

 variety of fruit or vegetable should have a separate 

 room, and the keeper should know what degree of tem- 

 perature is best for each. Some varieties of apples 

 have the reputation of keeping better in cold storage 

 than others, but it is only because one had a tempera- 

 ture suited to it and the other did not. A car-load of 

 apples may have come from the orchard where the fruit 

 had been exposed to the hot sun and attaiued a tem- 

 perature of perhaps 80° and was then placed in a room 

 with other car-lots which were at the proper tempera- 

 ture. In twelve hours the temperature in the room 

 would rise to 50°, and with the best of management it 

 would require forty-eight hours to reduce the tempera- 

 ture to the proper mark; this could not be otherwise 

 than injurious to the entire lot. 



It has not yet been fully settled what is the proper 

 degree of temperature to be used in keeping the various 

 fruits and vegetables. Keepers of cold storage plants 

 differ somewhat on this point, and it is probable they 

 all try to maintain a degree too low for most of our prod- 

 ucts. The writer believes the temperature most suit- 

 able for all (if we must use one for all products) 

 would be 34°. 



It is not important what kind of a building is used, 

 whether wood, stone or brick, but it is very desirable 

 that it should be divided into many rooms, so that each 

 product may be stored in a separate room; and where 

 large quantities of apples are stored, each variety 

 should occupy a separate room and the keeper should 

 have perfect control of each room and know the required 

 degree of temperature for each article and maintain it. 

 When this is done, cold storage will be a great suc- 

 cess, j. c. Evans. 



Refrigerator Cars. — The invention and development 

 of the refrigerator car have proved to be very impor- 

 tant factors in fruit production and marketing, making it 

 possible to marketin good condition themosttenderfruits 

 two to three thousand miles from where they are grown. 

 Prior to the days of the refrigerator car, strawberries 

 if shipped by freight more than one or two hundred 



2413. Icing cars 'at the top) at one of the stations of the Fruit 

 Growers' Express, Georgia. 



miles usually arrived in had order and were very unsat- 

 isfactory to both dealer and consumer, and, except for 

 the first few early shipments, prices were very low. It 

 was only at the ripening of "home-grown strawberries " 

 that for two or three weeks any market was satisfac- 

 torily supplied, and the public readily paid two and 

 three times the price they would for "shipped-in ber- 

 ries " a few weeks earlier. 



Now, with refrigerator cars of strawberries coming in 

 from Florida in February and along up the coast till 

 well into July, when the last strawberries come in from 

 Maine and northern New York, berries just about as 

 fresh and bright as "home-grown " are to he seen in all 

 our eastern markets for a season of five months. 

 Chicago and other western markets are in like man- 

 ner supplied from Texas to northern Wisconsin and 

 Michigan. 



Without the refrigerator car, the great peach orchards of 

 Georgia and Texas would not be practicable, as the most 

 of their fruit must be sold at the North. The "peach 

 season " now extends from May till November. The 

 "seasons " of other fruits are likewise extended in a less 

 degree, and the failure of the local crop in any one sec- 

 tion now has little effect on the local market. Michigan 

 or Missouri may be sending peaches to New York, 

 Boston and Philadelphia one season on account of a 

 failure of the crop in Delaware, New Jersey and Con- 

 necticut; while the next year a failure of the crop at 

 the West enables Connecticut, New Jersey and Delaware 

 to return the compliment and supply Chicago, St. Louis 

 and Minneapolis. Yet without the refrigerator car such 

 reciprocity would be almost impossible, except in the 

 most favorable seasons. The refrigerator car is really 

 a great ice-chest on wheels. Most of these cars are 

 constructed with ice-bunkers at each end of the car, 

 with a capacity of 4 to G tons of ice for each car. Fig. 

 2413. 



One style has some two feet of the whole top of car 

 as an ice-bunker, and is one of the best of cars if kept 

 fully iced all the while in transit. Railroad people 

 object to it slightly on account of being top-heavy, and 

 when not full the ice slides from one side to another 

 going around curves, etc. Most of the leading railroads of 

 the country own a number of refrigerator cars, and these 

 are furnished free to shippers who do their own icing. 

 There are several refrigerator car companies which own 

 and operate cars, and for a specified sura they attend 

 to loading the car and all the icing at initial points and 

 look after re-icing en route,— in fact, guarantee refrig- 

 eration until car is unloaded. This is the most expen- 

 sive service, but is safest and best for long distances. 

 But for one and two days' shipments, where the cars do 

 not require re-icing, the shipper can save money by 

 using the railroad refrigerators and do his own icing, 

 and there is no good reason why the leading railroads 

 cannot establish icing stations and re-ice their own 

 cars, charging the expense along on the freight bill. 



In loading a refrigerator car, care is taken that an 

 opportunity is provided for air circulation around each 

 package; this is accomplished by properly spacing the 

 first row of packages, then by "stripping" across the 

 tops of these two strips about Vyi in. square, tacking a 

 small nail down through them, one into each package. 

 The packages are held in place, and the 

 strips serve for the next tier of packages 

 to rest on and leave an air space of an 

 inch between the two layers. In this way 

 cars are loaded full up to eighteen inches or 

 two feet of the top, care being taken usually 

 to have the ripest or poorest carrying fruit 

 in the bottom of the car, and the firmest, 

 long -keeping at the top; for if the ice- 

 bunkers are not kept "chock-a-block" full 

 all the time, the top tiers do not get as 

 ,good refrigeration. It is also the custom 

 of many marketmen on unloading these 

 cars to sell out the top tiers first, for the 

 bottom-tier fruit keeps best; while often in 

 case of fruit picked a little too green, top 

 tiers show up best and bottom tiers are 

 stored out of the car a day before being 

 offered for sale. The best results in re- 

 frigerator car service are attained when the 

 car has been iced at least twelve hours before loading, 

 and the loading is quickly done by opening the car 

 doors only a few times. 



The writer's own plan, when fruit is abundant, is not 

 to start loading a car till he has fruit enough packed 

 to fill it; then with a gang in each end of the car to 

 properly space the packages and do the "stripping" and 

 nailing, open the doors and rush in all the middle o£ 



