APPENDIX 209 



hundred pounds from South Carolina points to New York 

 and Philadelphia. The shipper furnishes his own ice and 

 must provide for icing on the way, the railroad assuming no 

 responsibility for the giving out of the ice, provided their 

 train is nearly on time. Taking all things into consideration, 

 the shipment in the iced chests is the most expensive, and it is 

 said that but few use them who have sufficient quantities of 

 fruit to use the iced cars. However, these refrigerator boxes 

 are of great value to small shippers, and they are coming into 

 use more and more, not only for shipment from the south 

 but from northern points. We have recently had letters from 

 people in Canada who were making arrangements to use these 

 chests in shipments to markets in the United States. One 

 wished to know whether it would do to paint or oil the inside 

 of the chest to make them impervious to moisture. We have 

 not seen any on which this has been tried, and all the receivers 

 with whom we have talked seem to think that it would not be 

 a good plan, as anything so penetrating as oil would be likely 

 to affect the berries, which are nearly equal to milk for 

 absorbing odors. Lining the chest with heavy clean paper is 

 a good plan. Some claim that shipments of berries in refrig- 

 erator boxes have sold at higher prices than those sent at the 

 same time to the same market in ordinary crates in iced cars, 

 but we are not able to find any instances of this discrimination 

 that can not be traced to the difference in quality of the 

 berries. Probably the man who ships comparatively few and 

 uses the box takes a little more care in grading than the one 

 who sends a carload. This has been our observation in 

 regard to the berries we have seen opened here." 



REFRIGERATOR CARS 



The following account of the use of refrigerator 

 cars for shipping southern fruits is given by Prof. F. 

 S. Earle (Ala. Exp. Sta. Bui. 79 : 106. March, 1897): 



"Refrigerator cars were first built for the meat trade. 

 The meat was hung in cold storage houses, and was loaded 

 into the cars at, or near, the freezing point. In a tight, well- 



