GATHERING, PACKING AND SHIPPING. 



How In gathering oranges the ripe fruit should first be taken, 



to Pick lightening up the trees. The orange should never be 

 Oranges. pulled, but clipped, preferably with blunt-pointed clip- 

 pers. The stem must be cut short, and great care should 

 be exercised that the clipper does not cut the skin. 



Cooling Where there is no pre-cooling plant easy of access the 

 of fruit should not be packed fresh from the tree, but 



Fruit. should cool by lying at least overnight. Many packing 



plants are equipped with fans for cooling and drying. 

 Under the pre-cooling method fruit is cooled to and kept at a tempera- 

 ture of 36 degrees. Thus far, few packing houses are equipped with 

 pre-cooling plants, and there is talk of the railroads erecting pre- 

 cooling plants to care for the fruit from the smaller exchanges. Pre- 

 cooled fruit requires but one icing between Los Angeles and the 

 extreme east, as against two or three where there has been no pre- 

 cooling. The percentage of decay is reduced to a minimum, and the 

 fruit has a higher market value, as when it is known to be solid and 

 sweet throughout the box it is bound to command better prices. 



Machinery and The following description of a packing house 



Methods Employed is taken from "The Decay of Oranges while 



in in Transit from California," by G. Harold 



Packing Houses. Powell: "The average packing house is 

 equipped with box-making machines, which 



nail together the boxes for carrying the fruit to market ; specially con- 

 structed hand-trucks for moving several picking or shipping boxes at 

 a time; hoppers for receiving the fruit; washing tanks and scrubbing 

 machines to remove the sooty-mold fungus, and drying racks in those 

 sections where the fruit has to be washed ; elevators to carry the fruit 

 to the grading and sizing machines, drying racks and other places ; 

 carrying belts or chutes ; automatic weighing and recording scales for 

 weighing the different grades of fruit of each grower ; series of padded 

 bins, sometimes with self-adjusting bottoms, for receiving the differ- 

 ent sizes of fruit ; belts to carry the packed boxes ; presses for covering 

 the boxes, and sometimes a system of fans to assist in drying the 

 fruit; and a machine to wrap the fruit automatically. All of the 

 stationary machinery is run by power, making the interior of a 

 large packing house in operation resemble the interior of a complex 

 factory. 



"There is a wide variation in the type and arrangement of the 

 different kinds of machinery." 



Fruit Graded According The grading of fruit has no reference to 



to Quality, its size, but depends upon the general tex- 



not Size. ture of skin, on appearance as influenced 



by scars, and on the general form and 



style of the fruit. Bright colored, smooth, firm oranges, with thin 

 fine skin, will always command the best price. 



The grades of oranges are usually known as "Fancy," "Choice," 

 and "Standard." Weight, juiciness, thin, deep-orange-colored skin 



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