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CIRCULAR 659, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Bad bruising of western apples is usually the result of poor sizing, 

 poor alinement, overfilling (fig. 15) or rough handling of boxes, or of 

 jolting in the bottom layers of boxes in the car during shipment. Apple 

 boxes are loaded on their sides, and it is not uncommon to find all 

 apples that are in contact with sides of boxes next to floor racks flat- 

 tened (fig. 16). This type of injury, sometimes mistaken for freezing 

 damage, can be lessened by use of a resilient cushion liner between the 

 apples and the sides of the box {21). Unpublished data of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture show that apples in boxes lined with 

 4-way pads, which received regular commercial handling between a 

 northwestern cold storage and Texas retail stores, had 95.8 percent 

 more severe bruises than those in boxes protected from forceful impacts 

 during car loading and market distribution. 



Sometimes apple boxes are overfilled to such an extent that they bulge 

 on the sides, which are supposed to be rigid, as well as on the top and 

 bottom (fig. 15). When a standard apple box rocks in a s^ack, the fruit 

 is sure to be badly bruised before it reaches the market (fig. 14, A and C). 



Of increasing importance in commercial apple packaging is the use of 

 tray packs (fig. 17). The pressed- wood-pulp trays have cup-shaped de- 

 pressions to hold apples of a given size in perfect alinement and are 

 fitted in wood boxes or fiberboard cartons of slightly larger dimensions 

 than a standard apple box. Packing may be done by unskilled packers 

 if the apples are mechanically sized. These packages have proved very 

 effective in preventing the large bruises incident to box closure and 



Figure 17. — Fiberboard carton used for a tray pack. The pressed-wood-pulp tray, 

 shown at the side of the carton, holds a layer of apples and protects the fruit from 

 excessive bruising against the sides and bottom of the container. 



