12 BULLETIN 531, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



In most localities the berries are either shipped in the containers 

 in which they are picked, without further handling, or emptied on 

 tables, the culls removed, and the sound fruit repacked for shipment. 

 The former method necessitates great care in picking; the latter 

 method undoubtedly bruises the berries somewhat even when care- 

 fully done. 



Practically all berries shipped from Florida are packed in quart 

 cups, each cup " capped " or " plated " ; that is, the top layer consist- 

 ing of berries of uniform size placed snugly together with their tips 

 all pointing in the same direction. Shipments from this State are 

 made at a season when no other berries are in the markets and are 

 intended to supply a demand for fancy fruit. 



The strawberries are shipped in three ways. During the early 

 part of the season most of them are shipped by express in iced con- 

 tainers, called pony refrigerators, which hold 64, 80, or occasionally 

 32 quarts each. From 75 to 250 pounds of ice is placed in an open 

 pan in each refrigerator and the refrigerator tightly closed. In this 

 manner berries are often shipped long distances, to New York, Bos- 

 ton, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and other northern markets. 

 Later in the season iced cars are shipped from the more important 

 strawberry-growing centers, but the use of the pony refrigerator is 

 at no time abandoned. Under favorable weather conditions many 

 shipments from Florida to Washington, Baltimore, and other rela- 

 tively near-by markets are made by express in open ventilated crates 

 without refrigeration. The use of different methods of shipment in- 

 creases the difficulty of controlling merely by refrigeration the 

 growth of Rhizopus during transit and emphasizes the necessity of 

 preventing the infection of the fruit. Experiments were performed 

 to determine the relative importance of the various possible sources 

 of infection. 



In many strawberry-growing sections it is customary to mulch 

 with bay, straw, pine needles, or other material to protect the fruit 

 from dirt. In other localities this practice is not followed, and 

 when the fruit is picked immediately after a rain or when wet with 

 dew ii inch sand or other dirt adheres to the berries. This fruit is 

 sometimes shipped to market without cleaning, but usually an 

 attempt is made to avoid or correct this condition. In some locali- 

 ties picking the berries early in the morning when wet with dew is 

 avoided, and the dry sand is shaken off in the process of picking. 

 In other places the fruit is emptied on tables covered with cloth 

 and shaken gently, most of the sand being lost in this way. In 

 central Florida, a region important for the earliness and length 

 of its shipping season, it is customary to wash the berries when 

 brought from Hie field. They are immersed for a few seconds in 

 a tub of water, then cither packed moist or spread on a cloth frame 



