420 CITRUS FRUITS AND THEIR CULTURE. 



least 50 per cent of the value had been lost by allowing 

 the fruit to hang on the trees too long. Not only on ac- 

 count of the large sizes would it have been discounted 

 50c. per box, but the keeping quality of the lemon which 

 is allowed to mature on the tree is never good. Good 

 results cannot be obtained, even by the best methods of 

 keeping lemons, unless the fruit is picked at the proper 

 time and carefully handled. A little illustration will, 

 perhaps, be in point. 



u Some time ago I visited one of the Southern Cali- 

 fornia packing houses and they happened to be getting 

 out a car of lemons at the time. I noted the rough, care- 

 less manner in which the fruit was being handled, and 

 spoke to the manager about it, remarking that our fruit 

 would not stand that kind of treatment, and asked him 

 if he did not have trouble with decay. His reply was 

 that they had practically no decay and that their fruit 

 was giving fine satisfaction. Before leaving I took note 

 of the car number and watched it in my bulletin. When 

 the car arrived East, 25 per cent decay was reported. 



"THE PACKING HOUSE. 



"The Limoneira Company's house is 300 by 100 feet. 

 The flooring is 2-inch planking and the roof covered with 

 gravel paper roofing. The building has no sides what- 

 ever, allowing free circulation of air. The fruit for stor- 

 age is put into regular shipping boxes, piled in blocks of 

 560 boxes. There is a double row of these blocks on either 

 side of a twenty-foot space which extends the entire length 

 of the building and which answers the double purpose of 

 a workroom and an air space. The boxes are so piled 

 as to permit of the circulation of air around each box. 

 Each block of fruit is covered with a canvas 10x10x20 



