58 



THIRTY-FOURTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 



I don't know how the rest of yon old orange prodncers feel about it. 

 but I copfess to a very shamed feeling when I think that after nearly 

 twenty years of experience with, and somewhat careful study of, this 

 fruit, and in spite of the tremendous annual loss we were sustaining- 

 from decay all this time. I had not sense enough to find out that all we 

 had to do to put our fruit into the markets without decay, with an 

 aggregate saving of millions to our industry, was to prevent injury in 

 handling. And now. for one. I feel like trying to forget the humil- 

 iation by adding my mite towards inducing the industry, as a whole, 

 to effectively use the tremendously valuable facts the Government had 

 to come across the continent to show us. 



Here is the finest orange picked from my little home grove near a 

 score of years ago. and here is a Florida Russet that I cut from the 

 Florida tree two years ago. handling it somewhat carefully that I might 

 get it home, safely. The framework of these fruits being uninjured, all 

 germs of disease were excluded, and they remained perfect till the juice 

 gradually evaporated after long exposure. In this little nut shell is 

 the whole secret of our fruit decay and its prevention. 



Perhaps in no instance have so marked practical results from .scien- 

 tific investigation l)een followed so quickly and generally by actual 

 changes in methods in any great agricultural industry as we already 

 tind in the handling of our California oranges since the results of Mr. 

 Powell's investigations into the causes of their decay have been made 

 known. The newly discovered factor in prolonging the life of an 

 orange, after it has been parted from the tree, has been so effectively 

 demonstrated as to command the attention of growers in all California 

 orange sections, to such extent as to have already radically changed 

 methods in harvesting the fruit and preparing it for market. New laws 

 concerning the effect of temperature have been so well determined as to 

 materially change methods in transportation, and more than a million 

 dollars per annum is being saved to the industry by intelligent, careful 

 handling. It is a wonderful achievement for scientific research, and of 

 the prompt application of its results in practice. I am proud of our 

 Washington Department of Agriculture, and the trained young men it 

 sends us to help us out of our serious difficulties. I am proud, too. of 

 the few enterprising orange growers who so promptly and efficiently 

 applied the new facts brought out by the scientists, and so quickly trave 

 us practical object lessons demonstrating their value. 



But are we satisfied, even with these prompt and splendid results, 

 though alone sufficient to mark an era in our industry ? I confess, for 

 one, I am not. So long as there is careless picking in so many orchards : 

 so long as we see so large a proportion of the oranges hauled from 

 orchard to the packing house in the heat of the day. unprotected from 

 the broiling sun and insinuating dust, in wagons without springs, and 

 otherwise utterly unfit for their transportation: so long as crude or 

 complex machinery, through which it is impossible for fruit to pass 

 without mechanical injury, is found in so many of our packing houses : 

 so long as packing houses attempt to handle twice the amount of fruit 

 during the hurried part of the season their equipment is adapted for : 

 in short, so long as the daily reports show that one third of the sales 

 returned from practically the same grade of fruit average net. to the 

 grower, more than fifty cents per box. than the average of the lower 



