HANDLING AND SHIPPING FRESH CHERRIES AND PRUNES. 
15 
therefore held in an iced car at Salem under conditions approximat- 
ing transit conditions as nearly as possible. During the season of 
1913, although arrangements had been made for several car-lot 
shipments of fresh primes to one market, the weather and other 
conditions were such as to make necessary the abandonment of these 
arrangements. During that season, therefore, no comparison of 
carefully and commercially handled fruit was possible, and the 
experimental work had to be confined largely to precooling tests with 
carefully handled fruit, maturity tests, and a comparison of fruit 
from different sections and soils. While the weather conditions 
during the two seasons mentioned were not the most favorable for 
fresh-fruit shipments, they were such as occur quite frequently dur- 
ing a series of years, and if prunes can not be shipped more or less 
successfully during such seasons entire dependence must be placed 
on the evaporated or dried products, and everything should be done 
with a view to growing fruit especially for this purpose and to 
curing a product of the very highest market quality. 
RELATION OF HANDLING TO DECAY IN TRANSIT. 
During the season of 1911 a number of experimental tests were 
made of carefully and commercially handled fruit. The carefully 
handled lots were picked and packed by representatives of the 
Bureau of Plant Industry, the fruit being secured from the same 
orchards and at the same time as that handled commercially. The 
lots are comparable in every way except in the care exercised in the 
picking, hauling, and packing. 
Table IV. — Decay in carefully and commercially handled prunes, Willamette 
Valley, season of 1911. 
Time in iced car. 
Time and manner of handling and 
extent of decay (per cent). 
On withdrawal. 
Care- 
ful. 
Commer- 
cial. 
Six days after with- 
drawal. 
Care- 
ful. 
Commer- 
cial. 
10 days 
15 days 
20 days 
0.7 
.4 
2.7 
3.5 
7.1 
6.8 
2.1 
3.7 
6.9 
8.7 
16.6 
23.3 
The data presented in Table IV, which are illustrated graphically 
in figure 4, show the differences in decay between the carefully 
handled and commercially handled fruit. These lots were held in an 
iced car for 10, 15, and 20 days, and were inspected on withdrawal 
and again 2, 4, and 6 days afterwards, only the results of the in- 
