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a car at Sacramento with two air-tight compartments and loaded it with 

 fruit from Fresno, El Dorado, Placer, and Sacramento Counties in 

 varieties as follows: Peaches, pears, quinces, persimmons, and grapes. 

 At 5 p. m. October 13th, the car was sealed at Sacramento, the ther- 

 mometer standing at 80°. The next morning at 6 o'clock, while the 

 train was approaching Colfax, one of the locomotives on the train 

 exploded and the concussion resulting therefrom caused the forward 

 compartment to leak badly, and from that point to Chicago we were 

 unable to keep it supplied with gas. At Gold Run the thermometer 

 stood at 80°; at Ogden the car was side-tracked for eight hours with the 

 thermometer standing at 90°. At Grand Junction the car was side- 

 tracked for twenty-two hours, the temperature being 100° during the 

 day. At Leadville the car was derailed and a further delay of eight 

 hours was encountered. At Kansas City the car was side-tracked six- 

 teen hours, and at that point the compartments were opened and the 

 gas allowed to escape, as it was expected that the car would reach the 

 auction house in Chicago in twenty-four hours. However, on arrival 

 at Chicago the car was delayed at the stock yards twenty-six hours 

 before it could be placed at the auction-rooms for unloading. When the 

 car finally reached its destination it had been fifty hours without gas, 

 and the temperature inside the compartments indicated 110°. Notwith- 

 standing this the fruit from the compartment not damaged by the 

 explosion was found to be in good, merchantable condition, and it was 

 sold at public auction for prices as high as any refrigeration fruit brought 

 that day. There were several carloads sold at the same timewhich had 

 been but seven days in transit under ice refrigeration, while the time occu- 

 pied in transit by our car was eleven days. Two days after the sale we 

 had parties in Chicago look up the fruit after it had reached the hands 

 of the retailers who had purchased some, and five days thereafter they 

 reported the fruit in good condition, being seven days after its arrival. 

 The fruit in the compartment which leaked on account of damage to the 

 car was partially spoiled, which proves conclusively that without the 

 gas process it. would not carry. The carbonic acid gas process holds 

 the fruit in a state of suspense and prevents it from changing its condi- 

 tion in the least while under treatment. During the time of trans- 

 portation the temperature inside the undamaged compartment stood 

 between 60° and 75°. 



Further demonstrations were made here by putting green Bartlett 

 pears under treatment, holding them in suspense for eighteen days, and 

 then they were exposed at Wooster & Ensign's office in San Jose for 

 fifteen days before they ripened. 



Sufficient demonstrations have been made by us to prove that fruit 

 can be kept a sufficient length of time for transportation to England. 



We claim that by our process we can to a certain extent control 

 the temperature of the cars while in transit, and also hold the fruit in a 

 state of suspense and preservation, preventing it from ripening, and 

 when exposed for sale it will hold up for several days longer, absolutely 

 free from fungus and better than any fruit shipped under cold storage 

 or refrigeration, there being a great preservative quality in the natural 

 carbonic acid gas used in the process. The temperature in the car is 

 not reduced so much below that of the atmospheric temperature at the 

 point of destination that it is caused to sweat, as in the case of exposing 

 fruit to the natural air from cold storage. The salient feature of our 



11-FG 



