CELERY STORAGE EXPERIMENTS. 3 
celery for storage. Also, if growers and dealers realize that for 
satisfactory results celery must be properly handled before it reaches 
the storage house, they will use more care in preparing the crop 
for storing. 
PRELIMINARY STUDY. 
Before starting the investigational work, which was continued 
- for a period of four years, a preliminary study of the conditions 
prevailing in storage houses and on the market was made. It was 
observed that celery held for two or three months nearly always 
showed some decay and that this decay developed faster in the 
center than in outer parts of the crate. In many instances the 
stored celery was so badly decayed that the tops had the appearance 
of being scooped out in the center of the crate. 
It was also observed that the large crates were often so badly 
broken when they reached the market that the celery was consider- 
ably injured, and in many cases the crates had to be repaired or 
entirely remade. The crates when filled with celery were so heavy 
that they were broken in ordinary handling, especially in loading in 
the field and in loading and unloading at the storage house and at 
the market. 
Under ordinary conditions the celery is loaded on a wagon in the 
field and unloaded from the wagon into cars for shipment to the 
storage house. At the storage house it is taken from the car, placed 
on hand trucks, and transferred to the storage room, where it is 
unloaded and piled four, five, or six crates high. When the celery 
is ready for shipment to market it is again transferred on hand 
trucks and loaded into cars. At the market center it is loaded into 
wagons or motor trucks and hauled to and unloaded at the wash 
rooms. Sometimes the crated celery is handled two or three times 
more before it reaches the retailer. With this amount of handling 
it can be readily seen that the crates would have to be very strongly 
made to prevent breakage. When the crates are badly broken, 
the celery stalks are often crushed and the injured portions offer 
entrance for decay-producing organisms. 
OBJECTS AND OUTLINE OF THE EXPERIMENTS. 
The main objects of the experimental work were as follows: 
(1) To determine the factors which hasten decay in celery in storage houses. 
(2) To determine the best method or methods of reducing the loss of celery 
in storage due to decay and mechanical injury. 
(3) To determine the best type of crate in which to paek celery to be held in 
a cold-storage warehouse, 
{4) To study the effect of the temperature of the storage room on the keep- 
ing quality of celery. 
