32 



MISC. PUBLICATION" 540 ; U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



feature might result in serious accidents to the operator. Mechanical 

 coring is usually carried out on a complete head of cabbage. The dif- 

 ficulty with the operation is that after coring, the operator cannot be 

 certain that the complete core has been removed. Even though the 

 core is completely removed, it would seem desirable at least to cut the 

 head in half to make certain that the inside tissue is free of iinsect 

 and disease injury, such as black leaf speck and red heart. Failure 



Figure 14. — Methods of coring cabbage by hand : A, cutting to minimize hand 

 labor. Only three knife cuts are necessary. B, six knife cuts are necessary. 



to reject such heads will lead to increased inspection costs for the 

 dried product and possible rejection of the product on the basis of 

 defects above the tolerance permitted. The system also has a dis- 

 advantage in that if loose heads are being processed, the complete 

 cabbage may disintegrate during the coring operation, thus causing 

 considerable waste. In some foreign countries, the core is sliced finely 

 and dried along with the cabbage. This process is not permissible un- 

 der United States Government specifications. After coring has been 

 accomplished, the product is washed as described in the section on 

 washing. 



Many types of trimming tables are in commercial use. Probably 



Fixed 



Knife edge 



Figure 15. — Stationary knife for coring cabbage. 



the most common for root vegetables is the straight-flow type in which 

 a belt carries the untrimmed product along each side of the table, and 

 the trimmed material is placed on a center belt which may be at the 

 same level as the side belt or elevated to allow room for a return 

 belt (figure 16). The "merry-go-round" type of trimming table has 

 proved very popular. The product is brought around again to the 

 trimmers if it is missed the first time. 



