20 



EXPERIMENTS OK PROCESSING PERSIMMONS. 



fruit and the relative ease of processing so that from an analysis one 

 may tell how readily fruits will process? 



5. Can processing be successfully conducted by keeping the fruit 

 under water or under other solutions? 



6. Can processing be successfully conducted by allowing the fruit 

 to asphyxiate itself by closing it up tightly ? 



EFFECT OF PROCESSING IN CARBON DIOXID ON THE RATE OF SUB- 

 SEQUENT SOFTENING. 



Experiment 13. In this experiment the effect of processing on the 

 rate of softening was studied. Five varieties of persimmons were 

 placed in tubulated 10-inch desiccators and the air displaced by car- 

 bon dioxid. Triumph, Tane-nashi, and Zengi required three days, 

 and Hachiya and Tsuru five days before the fruit became non- 

 astringent. The fruits were removed from the containers when pro- 

 cessed and all except the specimens used in tasting were wrapped and 

 kept in baskets beside the respective check lots. Counts of the num- 

 ber of softened fruits were made at the end of two and three days. 

 The most immature specimens, as judged by color, were used in test- 

 ing to determine whether or not processing was complete. It was 

 assumed that these would soften last had they not been used in tast- 

 ing, and they were so considered in the counts. The data are given 

 below in tabular form and are shown graphically in figures 1 to 5, 

 inclusive. 



Proportion of different varieties softening after processing at intervals varying from. 5 



to 33 days. 



1 The total number of fruits used in each lot is given at the top of each column. It varied from 12, in the 

 case of the large Tane-nashi persimmons, to 32 of the small Triumph variety. 



Hachiya softened a little while in process and afterwards softened 

 slightly more rapidly than its control. 



Tane-nashi softened very slightly while in process, while the con- 

 trol softened to the extent of 67 per cent. On withdrawal, the 

 processed fruits softened about as rapidly as the check lot. 



