HEARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 149 
two lots encountered in transit—that is, upon the temperature. If the 
shipment from Illinois to New York occurred in warm weather, as for 
instance, September, and the shipment out of storage from Illinois to 
New York in a common car occurred in J anuary, without too low a 
temperature—that is, not freezing—that lot which was shipped in 
J ay would probably be in better condition. 
Mr. Scorr. Assuming that the shipments in both instances would be 
the same, which would be in the better condition? — 
Mr. Taytor. That I could not say; we have not gotten that far along. 
The Coatrman. Now, pass to the next $5,000 item. 
Mr. Taytor. The next is to take up work on the Pacific coast with 
special reference to the difficulties that have arisen there in the market- 
ing of the citrus fruits particularly. 
The Cuatrman. What difficulties? 
Mr. Taytor. The citrus industry you might say in a general way— 
the orange and lemon industry is what I mean—is in this condition. 
There are a very large number of producers who have attempted dif- 
ferent ways of shipping. They have been very successful in their 
packing. They have worked out methods [ think far superior on the 
average to the methods prevailing in the Eastern States in the handling 
of the fruits, but they have found increasing losses, and last year par- 
ticularly they found that they were meeting with very heavy losses in 
transit. We have been urged during this year to come on immediately — 
we were not able to go—but an incidental investigation I was able to 
make about four weeks ago shows that a conservative estimate of the 
losses on California oranges and lemons in transit during the shipping 
season which had then just closed amounted to over $400,000. That is 
the statement, not only of growers, but of the heavy shippers, all of 
whom urge the importance of the work. ; 
The Cuarrman. It all comes east in refrigerator cars, does it not? 
Mr. Taytor. Practically all. Some of it is shipped in ventilator 
‘cars without ice, especially at certain times of the year. But we sus- 
pect that a large part of the difficulty is before the fruit reaches the 
packing house and before it goes into the cars. There are certain 
questions involved in the transportation and handling of the cars—— 
The Cuarrman. Those would be very simple experiments, would 
they not? 
Mr. Taytor. They necessitate a thorough investigation of the 
orchard conditions in California, affecting the orange and lemon. The 
question of the effect of irrigation upon the carrying quality of the 
fruit; the question of the time of picking to secure greatest durability 
of fruit; and, in the case of the lemon, the question of controlling the 
crop so that, instead of coming on the market in the winter when lemons 
are little desired, it shall come on the market in the summer when 
they are in great demand, seem to be the most important questions. 
A large part of the lemon crop under the present conditions has to 
be picked between the 1st of January and the 1st of March, and there 
is little demand for lemons and prices are low during that time. That 
is one of the cases, too, where there are cooperative efforts. The stor- 
age people, the growers, and the railroads have been at work on this 
problem. They undertook to settle it last year by cold storage, but 
they did not satisfy themselves that they made any distinct progress, 
and they turned to the Department for assistance in this matter. They 
offer us all facilities necessary, and the principal expenditure on our 
