PRECOOLING 



27 



For the lettuce a container of the type of the lettuce crate or 

 that used for shipping California cauliflower is very much 

 better than the barrel-high hamper. The half crate in my 

 judgment is very much better than the standard crate for 

 the storage of celery in this state. 



Aside from the question of careful handling and the ques- 

 tion of the container comes the question of reducing the tem- 

 perature of the produce as quickly as possible so as to put it 

 at a point where bacteria and fungi cannot act upon it. That 

 is the whole problem of long keeping. Anj^hing which con- 

 tributes to that end makes the transit of the product safer 

 and makes the keeping of it longer. 



Equipment. 



Professor Johnson (Virginia) : Could you tell us what 

 kind of a plant would be necessary for precooling for the 

 ordinary grower? 



Professor Corbett: That I do not think we can answer 

 in anything like a definite way. Just how that can be worked 

 out will depend a great deal on circumstances. If the 

 business can be handled somewhat on a community basis, prob- 

 ably a mechanical plant will be best. If it has to be handled 

 on an individual basis and you can either store naturally or 

 get artificial ice cheaply, probably a very simple salt and ice 

 plant will be most satisfactory. But that is a problem that 

 we have not gone into up to the present time. We have been 

 interested in the fundamental question of what effect the pre- 

 cooling has rather than trying to get down to the practical 

 side of it. What we are using is a portable mechanical pre- 

 cooling outfit. We have a specially constructed car which 

 has a modern mechanical refrigerating plant built into it, 

 about a twelve ton ice plant aboard a car. The cold air from 

 the refrigerating plant is carried through insulated pipes 

 which are attached to the bunkers of the refrigerator car in 

 which the material to be shipped is stored. The stuff is 

 harvested, loaded into an ordinary refrigerator car, run be- 

 side our ice plant, and the temperature of the material is 

 brought down to the point that we think a safe one. 



