THE REFRIGERATOR CAR. 



mixture of ice and salt is used. In fact 

 Mr. Hanrahan has found a low tempera- 

 unnecessary for the preservation of 

 perishable goods. Cold is not of the 

 the first importance, though the ordinary 

 experimenter thinks of nothing else. 

 What is essential is that the air in the 

 chamber should be kept at all times 

 active, dry, inodorous and otherwise 

 pure. The moisture and odors given 

 off by the goods carried, the heat which 

 they exhale or that which they absorb 

 from the warmer air surrounding the 

 car body, must all be abstracted from 

 the chamber. Decay may be retarded 

 for a time by a low temperature alone, 

 but the products carried or stored, fruit 

 especially, will " go down," or otherwise 

 decay as soon as exposed to ordinary 

 air. 



Experiments have demonstrated to 

 Mr. Hanrahan that the elimination of 

 moisture and the products of decay from 

 the refrigerator chamber is of far greater 

 importance than the maintenance of a 

 very low temperature. Such tempera- 

 tures have been maintained in the ship- 

 ments that have recently been made to 



England. The cold was produced by 

 the most approved chemical processes. 

 The temperature of the storage cham- 

 bers was all that could be desired, but 

 no application was made of the cold 

 produced to rid the storage chamber of 

 the moisture, gases, odors or heat pro- 

 duced by the goods carried. The result 

 was necessarily failure. On the other 

 hand, as Professor Saunders testified a 

 few years ago in his address before the 

 Fruit Growers' Association, large quan- 

 tities of tender fruits were carried by the 

 Hanrahan process to the Indian and 

 Colonial Exhibition at London, and 

 exhibited in perfect condition. The 

 success of that shipment has never since 

 been duplicated, and it never will be 

 until shippers adopt a rational system 

 of cold storage and transportation. 

 Though Mr. Hanrahan is a Canadian 

 his cars are not running between Cana- 

 dian points. They however, pass through 

 Ontario every day successfully carrying 

 the products of the United States. 



F R. Latchford. 

 Ottawa. 



I 



DEVICE FOR PICKING GOOSEBERRIES. 



T is the habit of all our sorts of 

 gooseberries to grow in a tangled 

 mass of branches close to the 

 ground, says Orange Judd Farmer, 



The result is most difficult picking and 

 scratched hands. Fig. 1602 shows a 

 simple plan to obviate the difficulty. If 

 one has many bushes this plan will prove 

 especially advantageous. The stout 

 wire ring, Fig. 1603 is put about under 

 the low lying branches and hooked. 

 Then the three wires are hooked into it, 



S*Ti 



Fig. 1602. — (Joosebekry Picking made 

 Easy. 



Fig. 1603.— Wire Ring. 

 the wires drawn up and hooked over 

 the stake that is stuck down in the 

 middle of the bush. One can then 

 reach under the bushes very easily. 



219 



