HANDLING DECIDUOUS FRUITS ON PACIFIC COAST 
in picking and packing. Frequently, also, 
from 10 to 50 per cent of oranges were 
found to be injured by the clippers in sev- 
ering the fruit from the trees or in hand- 
ling it in the packing houses. Again, 
from 5 to 40 per cent of table grapes 
were found to be cracked or broken more 
or less severely at the pedicles. 
The work of the Bureau of Plant I[n- 
dustry has shown that the more common 
kinds of molds which cause decay in tran- 
sit and storage have not the power to 
penetrate the unbroken, normal skin of 
the fruit. It has been shown that molds 
generally gain entrance through mechan1- 
cal bruises or abrasions of the skin made 
in the handling of the fruit in prepar- 
ing it for market. Some common forms 
of such injuries are bruises and scratches 
made in the picking of the fruit, in 
squeezing it and dropping it roughly in- 
to picking boxes, bags, baskets, or pails, 
or in pouring it from the field bag or pail 
into boxes. Hauling on springless wag- 
ons (sleds are sometimes used) may seri- 
ously bruise the fruit. Dirt, gravel, dried 
branches, or twigs in the bottom of the 
field boxes are also a frequent source of 
injury. Injuries of these types are not 
only difficult to detect but offer ideal con- 
ditions for the starting of decay. Many 
fruits are injured by scratches made by 
the finger nails of pickers and packers. 
In the case of soft fruits much bruising 
results from excessive squeezing in pack- 
ing. The tips of peaches are most deli- 
cate and easily bruised or injured. In 
examining peaches in shipping and stor- 
age experiments tip injury is frequently 
found to be the greatest source of decay. 
Grapes are perhaps the most easily in- 
jured of all fruits. An examination of 
grape berries shows that from 90 to 95 
per cent of the injuries consist of breaks 
or cracks at the pedicle where the stem 
joins the berry. Sometimes the bending 
aside of a berry is sufficient to cause a 
slight rupture or crack at that point and 
all such berries are susceptible to decay 
when they are packed. This indicates 
the extreme care with which all hand- 
ling of grapes must be done. Handling 
must be reduced to a minimum and al- 
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ways, when practicable, the bunches 
should be handled by the main stems, for 
every time a bunch of grapes is lifted 
there is danger of injury unless it is done 
with the utmost care. 
Grapes are often injured in placing 
them in the baskets—by rough handling, 
excessive squeezing or crowding, or twist- 
ing and binding the long bunches to form 
compact masses. It has been shown that 
unbroken grape berries carefully handled 
and laid in loosely do not decay under 
normal conditions of shipment, and the 
nearer the packing can be made to ap- 
proach this ideal condition the less will 
be the danger of injury and resulting de- 
cay. 
Very soft fruits like cherries or ber- 
ries are very easily injured, especially 
when these fruits are allowed to become 
over-ripe. It is important to have the 
picking operations keep pace with the 
ripening of the fruit. This means going 
over the cherry trees several times. Ber- 
ry plantations at the height of the sea- 
son must be gone over daily. The softer 
or more susceptible the fruit is to in- 
jury the more carefully must it be 
handled throughout all the processes of 
preparing it for shipment. 
During the last two years the trans- 
portation investigations of the Bureau of 
Plant Industry have been extended to the 
table-grape industry of California. Care- 
ful observations on handling methods 
have been made and extensive shipping 
experiments have been carried on in or- 
der to demonstrate the results of careful 
handling in preparing the fruit for mar- 
ket. The experiments consisted of ship- 
ping a series of crates and boxes of grapes 
packed under known conditions through 
to New York, where the packages were 
carefully inspected and the actual per- 
centage of decay were determined. The 
ordinary commercial pack was used in 
comparison with the same fruit carefully 
handled by the government investigators. 
Records on 50 such shipments were ob- 
tained during the shipping seasons of 
1908 and 1909. 
The records of shipments made in 1909 
show an average of 1.2 per cent of decay 
