18 BULLETIN 587, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
in all handling operations is of primary importance in insuring 
sound. fruit, whether in storage or in transit. The results of these 
investigations, which have covered many classes of fruit, have been 
published as bulletins of the Department of Agriculture,’ and it is 
unnecessary to discuss this subject in any detail here. 
The fact that blue mold causes serious storage decay in apples, es- 
pecially those that have been carelessly and roughly handled, is of 
special interest to the apple growers of the Northwest. As has been 
previously stated, the fungus causing this trouble can not affect unin- 
jured, healthy fruit, and decay due to this cause can be largely pre- 
vented by reasonable care in the harvesting and handling opera- 
tions. Common sources of injury under commercial handling methods 
are very numerous. Finger-nail scratches by the pickers or packers, 
allowing sand and gravel to accumulate in the bottom of the boxes or 
nails and splinters to project from the bottom and sides, dropping 
the fruit carelessly into the picking boxes, careless stacking of the 
filled picking boxes in the field or on the wagon, and rough handling 
in loading the fruit and hauling it over rough roads on springless 
wagons are all sources of injury. In the packing house or shed 
the fruit is frequently dumped roughly into the packing bins and may 
be injured further by an improperly constructed or adjusted mechani- 
cal sizer. Injuries caused by stem punctures and cover bruises, which 
may be due to improper packing, or carelessness on the part of the 
pressman, are of very frequent occurrence. Many of the injuries 
caused in this way may be very small. None of them, however, is in- 
significant. A microscopic break in the skin of an apple is sufficiently 
large to afford entrance to the decay fungi, and bruises which are 
not noticeable when the fruit is packed may cause premature physio- 
logical decay in storage. 
Careful handling includes careful grading. All poorly developed, 
imperfect, and injured fruit should be eliminated from the storage 
lots. 
IMMEDIATE VERSUS DELAYED STORAGE. 
When an apple is removed from the tree, growth ceases, but the 
life processes which result in ripening continue more or less rapidly, 
the rapidity depending on the temperature at which the fruit is held. 
Under high temperatures ripening goes on very rapidly and the fruit 
approaches the end of its natural life much more quickly than when 
these processes are retarded by low temperatures. 
Delay before storage usually involves the exposure of the fruit for 
a longer or shorter pericd to a temperature decidedly higher than that 
1 Bulletins of the United States Department of Agriculture No. 63, Factors Governing 
the Successful Shipment of Oranges from Florida; No. 274, Factors Governing the Suc- 
cessful Shipment of Red Raspberries from the Puyallup Valley; No. 331, The Handling 
and Shipping of Fresh Cherries and Prunes from the Willamette Valley, 
