8 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 327 



staff in Agricultural Economics as a part of the county agricultural program 

 planning project. Under this program farmer committees are cooperating with 

 the county and state agricultural extension services in thinking through farm 

 problems and developing local plans of action. 



Background data on national, regional, and local acreages and production, 

 trends of crops and livestock, trends in population changes, in numbers and 

 sizes of farms, and the like are being organized and placed in available form for 

 use of these local committees and farmers. The first-hand knowledge of these 

 local people is indispensable for the development of systems of farming which 

 will conserve soil resources, maintain soil fertility, and result in adequate farm 

 incomes and farm living. The continuing lines of economic research of the 

 agricultural experiment station and the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture will be coordinated with the development of the programs. Judgments 

 of local farmers concerning the effects of proposed farming systems, marketing 

 plans, price policies, and other agricultural adjustments are needed in arriving 

 at sound judgments just as much as local farmers need assistance from Federal 

 and State agencies. The organization of the continuing phases of this project 

 will be mutually beneficial. 



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING 

 G. I. Gunness in Charge 



Investigation of Apple Storages. (C. I. Gunness in cooperation with 

 the Department of Pomology.) A study was made of the rate ol cooling of 

 apples in large blocks of bushel boxes in various storages. The season was not 

 favorable for this study due to cool weather at the time of harvest. The study 

 did reveal, however, that apples are cooled more rapidly and with greater uni- 

 formity throughout the room when diffusers or blowers are used than when 

 wall and ceiling coils are used. There was practically no difference in rate of 

 cooling in boxes at different heights in the stack in rooms cooled by blowers. 

 In rooms cooled by coils, there was a great difference in the rate of cooling at 

 different levels. With this system, the air cooled by the coils drops to the 

 floor and circulates among the bottom boxes, cooling the apples rapidly, As 

 the air is warmed, it rises to the top with the result that the top boxes are 

 cooled very much more slowly. The blowers maintain a high air velocity 

 through the room with correspondingly small temperature variations, hence 

 the cooling is more uniform. 



The relative humidity conditions in storages have been studied, particularly 

 in connection with ventilation at times when the outside temperature is lower 

 than the storage temperature, \ihile the relative humidity may drop from 

 95 percent to 80 percent during the time of ventilation, the original humidity 

 is re-established a very short time after the blowers are shut off. The ex- 

 perience of growers substantiates the assumption that the lowering of the 

 humidity for short intervals of time creates no appreciable shrivelling. The 

 variation in humidity from this cause is only slightly greater than that pro- 

 duced by the starting and stopping of the blowers when the air is recirculated 

 over the refrigerated pipe coils. 



Low-lift Pumps for Cranberry Bogs. (C. I. Gunness.) Last year we 

 reported on the construction of a plant for testing low-lift pumps. Additions 

 have been made to this plant during the past year, and it is now in working 



