HANDLING APPLES FROM TREE TO TABLE 



29 



had pads under the 

 lids, but only the 

 standard box had a 

 pad in the bottom, in 

 accordance with cus- 

 tomary practice in the 

 eastern United States. 

 The data in the foot- 

 notes of table 3 indi- 

 cate clearly that to 

 prevent bruising it is 

 beneficial to place a 

 pad on the bottom as 

 well as on the top of 

 the package. 



When western ap- 

 ples are found to be 

 badly bruised, it is 

 usually because of 

 poor sizing, poor aline- 

 ment, or overfilling the 

 boxes (fig. 13), as al- 

 ready pointed out, or 

 because of the jolting 

 which they experience 

 in the bottom layers 

 of the car during ship- 

 ment. It is not un- 

 common to find every 

 apple in contact with 

 the bottom side of the 

 bottom layer flattened by the vibration or pounding of the floor of 

 the car (fig. 14). As pointed out by Eose and Lutz (i-j), this type of 

 injury, sometimes mistaken for freezing damage, can be prevented 

 by use of a resilient cushion liner between the apples and the side 

 of the box. Some packers customarily use the so-called 4-way pads 

 that are effective in preventing this damage. 



Sometimes apple boxes are overfilled to such an extent that they 

 bulge on the sides, which are supposed to be i^igid, as well as on the 

 top and bottom (fig. 13). When a standard apple box rocks in a 

 stack, the fruit is sure to be badly bruised before it reaches the 

 market. Figure 12, A and 6\ shows the common appearance of 

 such fruit when it is unpacked for sale. 



Various types of fiberboard containers are likewise in use to some 

 extent. Some of these are packed similarly to the standard box 

 and are especially designed to eliminate bruising due to pressure of 

 top and bottom lids (fig. 15). Others, particularly in eastern sec- 

 tions, have egg-crate-type cells for the individual apples (fig. 16). 



These probably afford maximum protection against bruising, but 

 because of the diversity of shape required to package different-sized 

 apples it is difficult to load these satisfactorily in refrigerator cars 

 or trucks for shipment or to stack them economically in cold storage. 

 Corrugated fiberboard is a good insulating material and, conse- 



Figure 13. — Bulging of top, bottom, and sides of 

 standard boxes because of overfilling. When such 

 overfilled boxes are put under pressure in a stack 

 serious bruising results on apples in contact with 

 the sides as well as the lids. 



