48 BULLETIN 63, U. S, DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTUKE. 



of the picking and packing crews. The men should be paid by the day instead of 

 by the box, and a conscientious foreman should carefully oversee the "work of the indi- 

 A-idual pickers. The bureau experiments prove that it is possible to train workmen 

 to use more care and to greatly reduce their percentage of imperfections. 



^lore than 90 experimental shipments of oranges were made from Florida in 1910-11, 

 and 65 were sent out in 1911-12, including fruit from every section of the State and 

 from good, poor, and average houses. Plate XV illustrates the condition in which 

 some of these lots arrived in Washington. The carefully picked, graded, and packed 

 fruit showed 4 per cent of decay on arrival, the commercially picked but carefully 

 graded and packed fruit showed 35.6 per cent, and the commercially handled fruit 

 had 65.9 per cent. After one week these percentages had increased to 4 per cent, 46 

 per cent, and 71.6 per cent, respectively; after two weeks they were li.5 per cent, 

 54 per cent, and 72.2 per cent; and after three weeks, 11.5 per cent, 57.1 per cent, 

 and 72.2 per cent. 



The carefully handled fruit arrived in Washington during both seasons with less 

 than 1 per cent of decay, or an average for the two years of 0.6 per cent for all the 

 experimental sMpments. The fruit handled under commercial conditions through- 

 out had developed more than twice as much decay by the first inspection as occurred 

 in the carefully handled fruit at the end of three weeks. 



That commercial handling may also be careful handling is demonstrated by the fact 

 that during both seasons the average percentage of decay in the commercial fruit 

 shipped from 12 houses using care was almost as low as the average for any of the lota 

 carefully handled by the bureau Avorkers. In one packing house, where during 

 1910-11 the percentage of decay in the commercially handled fruit reached 15.8 per 

 cent after holding for three weeks in Washington, the handling operations were so 

 improved by the adoption of the bureau methods that during 1911-12 only 4.1 per 

 cent of decay develqped in the commercially handled fruit at the end of the same 

 period. 



It has been the general experience that blue-mold decay is more prevalent in 

 Florida during the early months of the shipping season than it is later. All of the 

 fruit carefully handled by the bureau workers, even that shipped during December, 

 showed much less decay after three weeks in market than the commercial shipments 

 during February showed on arrival. The shipping experiments showed that care- 

 fully handled fruit may be "ciu-ed" without serious loss, but that whenever the fruit 

 has been appreciably damaged in the course of its preparation for shipment, decay is 

 materially greater in the delayed lots. 



Although not more than 1 per cent of the total shipments of citrus fruits had pre- 

 viously been iced, during 1912-13 a considerable number of commercial shipments 

 were sent north under refrigeration. No sj'stematic study was made of the behavior 

 of fruit of the same grade and quality under the two systems of shipment, but the 

 general opinion seems to prevail among shippers that the icing resulted in material 

 benefit to the fruit. The investigations of the Bureau of Plant Industry have demon- 

 strated, however, that Florida oranges may be transported to market under ventilation 

 with a minimum loss from decay, even dining periods of warm and humid weather, 

 if sufficient care is used to preserve the skin of the fruit in an unbroken condition. 



CONCLUSIONS. 



In the light of the principles established by the workers of the Department of Agri- 

 culture in the investigations and experiments of the past seven seasons, viz, that the 

 condition of the fruit after arrival in market depends largely upon the character of the 

 work done in grove and packing house, and that it is possible to so conduct the opera- 

 tions of picking, packing, and shipping as to inflict a minimum of mechanical injuriea 



