PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS * CONVENTION. 211 



part looked upon it as a sort of necessary evil— a loss unpreventable. 

 But some who had calculated the tremendous total loss to the industry, if 

 continued from year to year, and especially when marketing conditions 

 became less favorable, as sooner or later they necessarily must be, by 

 reason of increased competition and the largely increased product as 

 indicated by the rapidly increasing orchard acreage here at the north 

 as well as with us at the south, led a few men to cast about to see if 

 something could not be done toward at least lessening this enormous 

 leakage from growers' profits, amounting to several millions annually. 



The Department at Washington was finally appealed to. After much 

 solicitation Dr. Wm. A. Taylor, pomologist in charge of field investiga- 

 tions of the Bureau of Plant Industry, came over to look into the 

 merits of the request. He recognized the trouble as one of sufficient 

 importance to justify immediate investigation by the Department. Mr. 

 G. Harold Powell, special expert on life of fruits, who had rendered 

 invaluable service to the great winter apple industry of the country by 

 his investigation into effect of cold storage and intelligent handling, 

 was sent to the Coast to look into the orange-decay trouble. It would 

 be too long a story to go into the particulars of his three years' investi-. 

 gation, and I can but summarize his methods and results. 



Mr. Powell was unacquainted with citrus fruit handling, but his 

 training as an expert investigator, and his study of the life of other 

 fruits after being parted from the tree, put him quickly on the track of 

 conditions that he thought might have to do with causing decay. These 

 leadings he followed up most carefully, repeating every test over and 

 over, under various conditions, till he was absolutely sure of his con- 

 clusions. 



He found that the delicate exterior structure of the orange was easily 

 injured. He demonstrated by repeated experiments that damaged 

 fruit was more or less subject to decay, according to the degree of heat 

 and moisture to which it is subjected. He also demonstrated, beyond 

 a question, that uninjured fruit under fairly favorable conditions is 

 practically immune from decay. Then came the question, Have we 

 been allowing our fruit to become injured in the handling? To this 

 inquiry Mr. Powell addressed himself with the same keen, systematic 

 persistence as he had to finding the law of fruit decay. He went into 

 the orchards and scrutinized the work of picking and other orchard 

 handling. He kept this up week after week in various orchards in 

 many different orange-growing sections, and then reported the astound- 

 ing fact that a large percentage of our oranges was habitually more or 

 less damaged in the handling. Careful growers could not credit this 

 till it was shown to their own eyes. 



On close examination from ten to forty per cent of the fruit was 

 shown to be damaged by the clippers, by punctures from long stems, 



