14 
BULLETIN" 35, TJ. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
temperature of the fruit can be reduced 15 or 20 degrees, depend- 
ing upon the natural night temperature. Figure 2 illustrates one 
method of stacking the field boxes in the vineyard for night cooling. 
If this method is impracticable, it is desirable to precool the packed 
fruit in well-refrigerated rooms as promptly as possible before load- 
ing on the cars. The ice of the refrigerator car can not safely be de- 
pended upon to lower the temperature of the grapes if they have 
been packed warm, for the tight package and the necessary close 
loading of the drums render cooling ven^ slow. If the grapes are 
cooled before loading, however, the ice in the refrigerator car is only 
needed to offset heat leakage from outside, and the temperature 
can thus be held nearer the desired point. The ice is sufficient to 
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Fig. 3. — Packing Emperor grapes. The men shown in the foreground fill in the sawdust 
and shake it down between the grape berries by tapping the sides of the drum with 
rubber-covered handles, to be seen on the table in the middle of the picture. The 
sacks shown contain the dried and sifted sawdust. 
accomplish this without difficulty, except in warm weather or in very 
inferior refrigerator cars. Even under exceptional weather condi- 
tions the rise of temperature is very slow within a cool grape package 
or a closely loaded car well equipped with refrigeration facilities. 
The fruit must be carefully graded and all imperfect or injured 
berries removed. In order to obtain the best results a special crew of 
graders should be employed for this work. Inspection of the fruit in 
the packing house and in the market has shown that unless the 
closest supervision is maintained the quality of the pack is inferior 
when the culling and grading are done by the packers themselves. 
Moreover, proper inspection is possible only when the fruit is culled 
and graded before it is conveyed to the packers. 
