REPORT OP COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATION 289 



When the present acreage of young vines reaches full bearing and the 

 new plantings come into bearing the volume of shipments may exceed 

 10,000 carloads or about 125,000 tons per annum. The bulk of these enor- 

 mous shipments must be handled within a period of six weeks to two months. 

 The importance of finding available markets for these large crops becomes 

 more pressing as production increases. It becomes necessary to extend the 

 area over which the fruit may be distributed and also as far as possible to 

 lengthen the marketing season through cold storage. 



There are two requisites for the successful shipment and sale of fruit: 

 (1) It must reach the primary market in sound condition; (2) it must 

 have sufficient market-holding quality after arrival in market to enable it 

 to be distributed through the various channels of the wholesale and retail 

 trade, and reach the consumer in sound condition. It will be seen then that 

 not only must the fruit carry to market in good condition, but it must 

 remain sound for a considerable length of time after it arrives. Fruit which 

 must be sold and consumed quickly after it arrives has only a limited sale 

 in the primary or wholesale market; fruit which can be held long enough 

 to be redistributed to surrounding small towns has a tremendous advantage; 

 buyers are eager to obtain such fruit and are willing to pay extra prices 

 for it. 



Experience in the past has shown that California table grapes cannot 

 be shipped to a number of markets in the United States and Canada on account 

 of the fact that the fruit does not remain sound long enough to make the trip. 

 Experience has also shown that during certain seasons, or from certain dis- 

 tricts of the State the grapes arrive with heavy percentages of decay. The 

 time required for the trip from California to the principal eastern cities 

 ranges from eight to ten days. Sometimes seventeen days are required to 

 make the trip from California to New York. The last is exceptional, how- 

 ever, and due to abnormal conditions on the transportation lines. In order to 

 reach the southeastern portion of the country, a longer time is necessary, and 

 the shipment of grapes into this territory is considered a risky undertaking. 



Table Grape Transportation Investigations of the United States Department 



of Agriculture. 



A few years ago the grape growers and shippers of California appealed 

 to the United States Department of Agriculture to make a careful study of 

 the conditions under which the fruit was being handled and shipped with a 

 view to determining the causes of the heavy losses from decay that fre- 

 quently occurred. The workers of the Office of Field Investigations in 

 Pomology of the Bureau of Plant Industry were detailed for this work, and 

 a thorough study of the methods of handling the fruit was made 

 through four successive seasons. The influence of the character of the 

 handling given the fruit in preparing it for shipment was studied and 

 a large number of demonstration shipments were made. This work formed 

 a part of the fruit transportation and storage investigations of the Bureau 

 of Plant Industry which have been under way for a number of years. 

 At the time the grape investigations were begun in California investiga- 

 tions of the causes of the decay in shipments of apples, peaches, oranges, 

 and lemons had been made with the result that a definite relationship 



