THIRTY-FOURTH FRUIT-GROWERS^ CONVENTION. 



71 



The processes of packing fruit have been improved upon. The 

 grader has been improved npon ; and I think it should be so constructed 

 that the fruit be brought together in a compass or phiee not larger 

 than the box. and the pressure on the box in packing should not be 

 enough to spring the box. 



Now, take the brush, the sizer, the boxes and the press, and I 

 think you have all the machinery that the packing house ought to 

 have. I think ever^l-hing else is waste. If I had a packing house, I 

 would not have a place where the fruit could roll a foot. I would 

 carry it on belts, and I believe it can be done. 



You have got to have arrangements in your packing house for cool- 

 ing your fruit. That is absolutely necessary. Whether you ship 

 fruit under ventilation, or under refrigeration, I do ngt believe that 

 the car is the proper place to cool it. I think you should have blowers. 

 ]n your wash room have a blower to take the moisture off and cool 

 your fruit. If you expect to ship it under refrigeration, have it in 

 use. That is not a machine, and yet it is a part of the machinery. 

 Fruit should be carried from the nailers into the pre-cooling rooms 

 and into the car in the most careful manner. We have a packing house 

 equipped at Pomona on the same style that ]\Ir. Rumsey speaks of, 

 with patent rollers. I think we have a good many hundred feet of 

 them. All fruit is taken right from the press, and goes on- to the 

 gravity roller, and passes through the different spaces down under tlv^ 

 tioor, and goes into the pre-cooling room under the floor. In loading 

 it out again, the reverse is the rule. We put fruit in the pre-cooling 

 room and it goes down into the hallway, and it is there loaded into the 

 vestibule of the car. When such an arrangement is made, it is an 

 economy of labor. It is cheaper to run it over these patent ways than 

 any other way, and less injury is done. 



Now, in .summing up, as I said before, you want a good, level-headed, 

 common sense foreman, who will see these things and have them 

 carried out. You want no machinery that you can dispense with. I 

 believe, ]\Ir. President, that is all I can say on this subject. (Applause.) 



THE CITRUS PROTECTIVE LEAGUE. 



By E. M. 'LYOX. of Riverside. 

 I don't think there has been any organization formed since fruit 

 packing was first started that is of more importance to the citrus 

 industry than the Protective League. We have different organizations 

 for packing and handling fruit, but each has its own particular ax to 

 grind. The Protective League was organized, not for any one organiza- 

 tion, not for any one packing house or for any one district, but for the 

 entire industry. 



When we were first organized, the first question that came up was 

 ihat of freight. I speak of that to show what the league has accom- 

 plished already with a very crude organization, so to speak, and sup- 

 ported itself by only a small part of the industry ; and if it was not for 

 the exchange, which came en masse and has supported it most enthu- 

 siastically, we would not have had the proportion we have had of the 

 industry, and we ought to have every one in the organization. (Ap- 



