24 COLD STOEAGE OF THE PEAR AND PEACH. 



the flesh. It has often been noticed that fruit in the various packages 

 in the same room does not keep equally well, some of it ripening- and 

 even softening- while the fruit in other packages is still firm. In fact, 

 the difficulties are so numerous that few houses attempt to store the 

 fruit. 



It has been the aim in the cold-storage investigations of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture to determine, as far as possible, the cause of the 

 peach-storage troubles and to indicate the conditions under which the 

 business may be more successfully developed. 



OUTLINE OF EXPERIMENTS IN PEACH STORAGE. 



The investigations have been conducted in the cold-storage depart- 

 ment of the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, Pa., with 

 Elberta peaches from the Hale Orchard Company, Fort Valley, Ga., 

 and in the warehouse of the Hartford Cold Storage Company, Hart- 

 ford, Conn., with Elberta and several other varieties grown by J. H. 

 Hale at South Glastonbury, Conn. 



In Georgia the fruit was packed in the Georgia peach carriers, left 

 unwrapped, and divided into two lots, one representing fruit that was 

 nearly full grown, well colored, and hard; the other, highly colored 

 fruit, closely approaching but not }^et mellow. Three duplicate ship- 

 ments were forwarded at different times in the two bottom la}^ers of 

 refrigerator cars, and in each shipment part of the fruit was placed in 

 the car within three or four hours after it was picked, and an equal 

 quantity delayed in a packing shed from ten to fifteen hours during 

 the day before it was loaded. Equal quantities of each series were 

 stored in temperatures of 32°, 36°, and 40° F. The transfer from the 

 refrigerator car to the storage house was made lr^ wagon at night, the 

 interval between the car and storage varying from two to five hours. 

 Tn Connecticut the fruit represented two degrees of maturity, simi- 

 lar to the Georgia shipments, except that the most mature fruit was 

 mellow when stored. This fruit was grown at an elevation of 450 feet 

 on trees six }^ears old. It was medium in size, firm, highly colored, 

 and of excellent shipping quality. Equal quantities were wrapped in 

 California fruit paper and left unwrapped, and packed in the Connec- 

 ticut half-bushel basket, in Georgia carriers, and in flat, 20-pound 

 boxes, holding two layers of fruit. The peaches were forwarded by 

 trolley to the storage house, which was reached in two hours after the 

 fruit left the packing shed. Duplicate lots of all the series were stored 

 f in temperatures of 32°, 36°, and 40° F. 



GENERAL STATEMENT OF RESULTS. 



The general outcome of the experiments, both with the Georgia and 

 the Connecticut fruit, is similar and may be summed up as follows: 



The fruit that was highly colored and firm when it entered the stor- 

 age house kept in prime commercial condition for two to three weeks 



