PROCESS OF RIPENING IN THE TOMATO. 5 
the ripening house as a means of culling out undesirable fruit be- 
fore shipping. In the ripening house the fruit is stored at a tem- 
perature of 75° to 85° F. for a variable period, depending upon the 
uniformity and maturity of the tomatoes at the time of picking. 
When most of them show a very slight red coloration they are re- 
moved and carefully sorted; all diseased fruits are discarded and the 
colored ones are graded, wrapped, and packed for shipment. Green 
fruit goes back to the ripening room. Improper conditions of ven- 
tilation, humidity, and temperature in the ripening room often 
increase the amount of disease, since such conditions favor the ger- 
mination of fungous spores and the spread of infections brought 
from the field. Nevertheless, this method of allowing diseases to 
develop and then culling the fruit before shipping saves paying 
transportation charges on spoiled fruit, as well as additional loss in 
transit through the spreading of infection to healthy fruit. 
' The use of the ripening room is restricted to the early months of 
shipping, when the weather conditions are such as to allow the fruit 
to be shipped in a colored condition. The temperature is generally 
low enough to prevent too rapid ripening, and when the fruit reaches 
the North the temperature is still colder, thus allowing the fruit to be 
kept for a considerable length of time before it becomes too ripe. La- 
ter in the season, however, it is inadvisable with the present methods 
of handling to ship colored fruit. The tomatoes are kept in the 
ripening room for two or three days, to allow infections to develop, 
and are then sorted and shipped. In general, after warmer weather 
. sets in the green fruit goes directly to the packing house from the 
field and is graded and shipped at once. Sometimes it ripens in 
transit, but more often it arrives green and has to be ripened at the 
* terminal. Frequently the fruit is packed in such an immature state 
that it never attains its normal color. In such instances the grower 
loses both in reputation and in financial return. 
When the tomatoes arrive at the packing shed they are dumped 
into bins, which usually are large enough to hold several crates. 
From these bins the grader culls all undesirable fruit and throws the 
good fruit into other bins, assorting according to size. Packers stand- 
ing directly in front of the bins wrap the fruits individually in special 
tomato paper and pack them in 4-quart baskets. Each basket re- 
quires smaller fruit at the bottom layer than at the top, where 
( the basket is wider, but in every basket the fruit is packed very 
tightly; in some cases quite a little squeezing is necessary. Six 
baskets are placed in each crate. The top is considerably bulged, 
owing to the close packing of the baskets. Crates in various stages 
of packing are shown in figure 2. 
The method of packing crates for shipment just described is un- 
fortunately the one generally used at the present time, but there is 
