HANDLING AND SHIPPING FRESH CHERRIES AND PRUNES. 3 



over as many seasons as is usually considered desirable in order to 

 warrant definite conclusions and recommendations, the marked and 

 consistent results obtained, in spite of extremely unfavorable weather 

 conditions, are considered of more than ordinary value and import- 

 ance. The results of the experimental work with both cherries and 

 primes serve further to corroborate the results of similar work with 

 oranges, lemons, apples, pears, red raspberries, peaches, and pine- 

 apples, and to emphasize the great importance of the most careful 

 handling in preparing fruit for shipment. 1 



OUTLINE OF THE EXPERIMENTS. 



Both careful-handling and precooling investigations were con- 

 ducted with sweet cherries and prunes during the season of 1911. 

 The work with prunes during the season of 1913 was confined largely 

 to the precooling of carefully handled lots, there being no comparable 

 commercially handled lots of fruit for purposes of comparison, as 

 rainy weather during the harvesting season rather discouraged fresh- 

 fruit shipments, especially as the prices prevailing for evaporated 

 or dried fruits were eminently satisfactory. On account of the 

 impracticability of securing a consignment of any definite number 

 of cars to any one market, actual shipping experiments had to be 

 omitted during both years, and all experimental series were held in 

 an iced car at Salem. 



Everything possible was done to make the conditions in the refrig- 

 erator holding car comparable with the conditions existing in fully 

 loaded cars in transit, but even with the most careful attention to 

 the details of icing, of placing the fruit in racks at different heights 

 from the floor to obtain various desired temperature conditions, and 

 of other precautionary measures, the general temperature conditions 

 in the holding car were probably more favorable to the fruit than 

 they would have been under actual transit conditions. The non- 

 precooled fruit cooled more quickly and the ripening processes and 

 the development of mold fungi proceeded more slowly in the hold- 

 ing car than would have been the case if shipped in a fully loaded 

 and iced refrigerator car. In view of these facts, the results 

 obtained may be considered even more impressive, as it is reasonable 

 to expect that differences between carefully handled and ordinarily 

 handled fruit would be even greater under actual shipping condi- 

 tions than those found in a stationary, partially filled, iced refrig- 

 erator car. The differences between precooled and nonprecooled 



1 Powell, G. H., and others. The decay of oranges while in transit from Calnornia. 

 U. S. Dept. Agr., Bur. Plant Indus. Bui. 123, 79 p., 26 fig., 9 pi. (2 col.), 1908. 



Stubenrauch, A. V., Ramsey, H. J., Tenny, L. S., and others. Factors governing the 

 successful shipment of oranges from Florida. U. S. Dept. Agr. Bui. 63, 50 p., 26 fig., 

 15 pi., 1914. 



Ramsey, H. J. Factors governing the successful shipment of red raspberries from the 

 Puyallup Valley. U. S. Dept. Agr. Bui. 274, 37 p., 26 fig., 1915. 



