HANDLING THE CITRUS CROP. 415 



The packing house must be sufficiently commodious 

 to accommodate a considerable amount of fruit. During 

 the process the fruit may be placed in shallow bins placed 

 against the wall. These should be padded on the bottoms 

 and sides. One of the most efficient arrangements of 

 bins for citrus fruit curing is that used by W. S. Hart, 

 of Hawks' Park, Fla. Trays are provided, 6x5 feet 

 and sufficiently deep to hold two or three layers of fruit. 

 They are placed in two tiers across the room, pivoted in 

 pairs between upright posts. Pins placed through the 

 posts hold them in place. When it is desired to roll or 

 move the fruit about, the pin in a certain tray, holding 

 that tray in a horizontal position, is withdrawn and it 

 is tipped either to one side or the other. This gives an 

 excellent chance to expose the fruit to the air. The bot- 

 toms are made of slats two or two and one-half inches 

 wide and rounded off on the edges, spaced about one- 

 half inch apart. 



Fruit may be cured very nicely in field boxes, such 

 as illustrated in Fig. 85. A sufficient number of these must 

 be provided to hold the picking and they may be stacked 

 in the packing house in tiers, as high as convenient. 



During the process of curing there should be a free 

 circulation of cool, dry air. 



Curing Lemons. The curing and holding of lemons 

 for market is a much more difficult undertaking than the 

 curing of sweet oranges, for instance. The latter are 

 usually marketed as soon as cured, but the bulk of the 

 lemon crop must be held for a considerable length of time 

 before it is marketed. In the first place, the fruit is 

 green when cut, and must be cured and colored before 

 being marketed, and in the second, the fall and winter 

 months are not the ones for lemons. Much of the fruit 



