TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



65 



20-foot space which extends the entire length of the building, and which 

 answers the double purpose of a work room and an air space. The 

 boxes are so piled as to permit of the circulation of air around each 

 box. Each block of fruit is covered with a canvas 10 by 10 by 20 feet, 

 made box shape and open at the four corners. The ventilation is con- 

 trolled by the raising or lowering of this canvas, and each block of fruit 

 can be given exactly the ventilation that it requires, irrespective of 

 the other fruit in the house. By this method, fifty or even one hundred 

 cars of fruit can be handled and kept in as good condition as if there 

 was only one. Each block being numbered, a complete record of the 

 lemons from each of the six sections of the ranch is kept from the time 

 they are picked until shipped. The fruit is washed in a lemon-washing 

 machine, and is piled up in the house wet just as it comes from the 

 machine. The canvas covers are not dropped over it, however, until it 

 is thoroughly dry. 



The Limoneira Company handled over one hundred cars by this 

 method last year with perfect success, some of the fruit being kept for 

 nearly six months in good condition. Not a lemon was shipped under 

 ice, and no allowance was allowed nor claim made for decay, excepting 

 on one car which contained weak stock and which by reason of a mis- 

 take in transportation was nearly a month in transit. In this case 5 

 per cent deduction was allowed. There are, at the present time, about 

 sixty-five cars of lemons in the company's packing-house, and we do 

 not feel the least uneasiness regarding it, knowing that by this method 

 we are masters of the situation. Any one trying to handle that quantity 

 of fruit by the old method would be gray-headed in a single season. 



We hear a great deal of late about sending our lemons East as soon 

 as cut, there to be held in cold storage for a favorable market. I must 

 say that I have no faith in that plan, and the following are a few rea- 

 sons why I think it impracticable: 



First — The lemon when picked and handled properly should stand 

 shipment to the Eastern markets without ice, and the ventilated lemon 

 that arrives in good condition invariably gives better satisfaction than 

 fruit that has been iced. True, sometimes fruit that is a little weak can 

 be iced and be made to arrive in fairly good condition, and will, per- 

 haps, sell well; but what does it do when taken out of the low tempera- 

 ture of the car and subjected to the hot humid atmosphere of the East? 

 It decays and goes in as evidence that California lemons are not good 

 keepers. I believe that the keeping qualities of hundreds of cars of 

 California lemons are injured every year by icing. In the early summer 

 months a few cars of lemons will, perhaps, arrive in bad condition and 

 the order will be sent out, "In the future, ice your cars," and the shipper 

 immediately goes to icing, regardless of whether the fruit to be shipped 

 is hard, good keeping stock or not. If it is bad practice to refrigerate 



5 — F-GC 



