9 6 
THE MARKETING OF HAWAIIAN FRUITS. 
Address delivered by Mr. J. E. Higgins, Horticulturist of the 
Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station, before the Students 
of the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Friday even- 
ing, March 27, 1908. 
Ladies and Gentlemen :— 
Our talk this evening will be on the subject of "The Marketing 
of Hawaiian Fruits." The subject is so large that I cannot hope 
to do more than rush through it and touch rapidly upon the dif- 
ferent fruits and the methods of handling them. 
THE AVOCADO. 
First, we will consider the avocado, which has always been 
considered a difficult fruit to ship. I do not consider it such. I 
consider that the avocado is a comparatively easy fruit to ship if 
it is handled in the proper way. 
The picking of the fruit should' be done within as short a time 
as possible previous to the sailing of the steamer. The avocado 
begins to soften very rapidly after it is picked, and as soon as that 
softening process begins, your troubles begin. You cannot then 
arrest successfully the maturing process and preserve the fruit. 
You should get it into cold storage as rapidly as possible after 
picking, and I would say that under our present facilities it is not 
quite safe to pick the fruit and place it in cold storage and then 
take it out to put it in the steamer, because the refrigerating com- 
partment of the steamer, where you put your fruit in, has to be 
kept open for the reception of other fruit, and your fruit which 
has become chilled then becomes warmed again and then chilled, 
and' these rapid changes in temperature are greatly conducive to 
the deterioration of the fruit. The fruit should be cut with great 
care so as to avoid bruising'. Perhaps it seems superfluous to say 
this, yet I have seen people who are in the fruit business, handling 
avocados in a way in which a good down-east farmer would not 
treat his potatoes; I have seen them packed in boxes and speci- 
mens dropped from this height (indicating about 3^2 or 4 feet) 
onto a concrete pavement floor and then picked up and put in the 
boxes as first-class merchantable avocados. That won't do. 
They must be handled with extreme care to avoid all bruising. 
The steins should be cut, as I have told you should be done in the 
case of oranges and lemons. Cut the stem comparatively near to 
the fruit and don't put in leaves — do not cut the s'ems long so as 
to include the leaves ; about a quarter of an inch or an eighth of 
an inch is sufficient, that is, beyond the natural joint. The pack- 
ing should be done also with care. I have brought here a few 
