PROCESS OF RIPENING IN THE TOMATO. 5 



the ripening house as a means of culling out undesirable fruit be- 

 fore shipping. In the ripening house the fruit is stored at a tem- 

 perature of 75° to 85° F. for a variable period, depending upon the 

 uniformity and maturity of the tomatoes at the time of picking. 

 When most of them show a very slight red coloration they are re- 

 moved and carefully sorted; all diseased fruits are discarded and the 

 colored ones are graded, wrapped, and packed for shipment. Green 

 fruit goes back to the ripening room. Improper conditions of ven- 

 tilation, humidity, and temperature in the ripening room often 

 increase the amount of disease, since such conditions favor the ger- 

 mination of fungous spores and the spread of infections brought 

 from the field. Nevertheless, this method of allowing diseases to 

 develop and then culling the fruit before shipping saves paying 

 transportation charges on spoiled fruit, as well as additional loss in 

 transit through the spreading of infection to healthy fruit. 



The use of the ripening room is- restricted to the early months of 

 shipping, when the weather conditions are such as to allow the fruit 

 to be shipped in a colored condition. The temperature is generally 

 low enough to prevent too rapid ripening, and when the fruit reaches 

 the North the temperature is still colder, thus allowing the fruit to be 

 kept for a considerable length of time before it becomes too ripe. La- 

 ter in the season, however, it is inadvisable with the present methods 

 of handling to ship colored fruit. The tomatoes are kept in the 

 ripening room for two or three days, to allow infections to develop, 

 and are then sorted and shipped. In general, after warmer weather 

 sets in the green fruit goes directly to the packing house from the 

 field and is graded and shipped at once. Sometimes it ripens in 

 transit, but more often it arrives green and has to be ripened at the 

 terminal. Frequently the fruit is packed in such an immature state 

 that it never attains its normal color. In such instances the grower 

 loses both in reputation and in financial return. 



When the tomatoes arrive at the packing shed they are dumped 

 into bins, which usually are large enough to hold several crates. 

 From these bins the grader culls all undesirable fruit and throws the 

 good fruit into other bins, assorting according to size. Packers stand- 

 ing directly in front of the bins wrap the fruits individually in special 

 tomato paper and pack them in 4-quart baskets. Each basket re- 

 quires smaller fruit at the bottom layer than at the top, where 

 the basket is wider, but in every basket the fruit is packed very 

 tightly; in some cases quite a little squeezing is necessary. Six 

 baskets are placed in each crate. The top is considerably bulged, 

 owing to the close packing of the baskets.' Crates in various stages 

 of packing are shown in figure 2. 



The method of packing crates for shipment just described is un- 

 fortunately the one generally used at the present time, but there is 



