HANDLING AND SHIPPING FKESH CHERRIES AND PRUNES. 9 
berry crates or similar types of carton packages are used. A more ex- 
tended trial of such packages for the shipment of cherries from sec- 
tions like the Willamette Valley would seem to be desirable. The 
10-pound cherry box when well packed is a very attractive package 
and is intimately associated with western cherries in the minds of 
the eastern and middle- western fruit trade. While the appearance of 
package and product counts for a great deal on the market, soundness 
is of first consideration. Even though cherries in berry crates or 
similar packages may not command the price that they would in 
the 10-pound box, it is a question whether this would not be offset by 
the decreased cost of packing and the better condition of the fruit. 
These factors can hardly be satisfactorily determined without com- 
mercial tests. 
PRECOOLING EXPERIMENTS. 
The precooling plant constructed by the Salem Fruit Union was 
utilized for the precooling experiments. In these experiments both 
carefully and commercially handled fruit was used in each series, 
PRECOOLED NON PRECOOLED 
/=>£/$ CE/VT DECAY PER CEA/T DECAY 
1 ' I ' I FIVE DAYS IN ICED CAR I ' I ' T 
Q 22 ON WITHDRAWAL 32 £g 
8— ■«* TWO DAYS LATER ,0. 
TEN DAVS IN ICED CAR 
ON WITHDRAWAL 
TWO DAYS LATER 
FIFTEEN DAYS IN ICE D ( 
ON WITHDRAWAL 
TWO DAYS LATER 
Fig. 2. — Diagram illustrating the percentages of decay in precooled and nonprecooled 
cherries commercially handled, Salem, Oreg., 1911. 
one half of each lot being precooled and the other half placed in the 
refrigerator car without precooling. The data given in Table II, 
which are illustrated graphically in figure 2, show the relation of 
precooling to decay and market condition, wherein only the results of 
the commercially handled fruit are given, the small amount of decay 
in the carefully handled fruit being practically the same in both the 
precooled and nonprecooled lots. 
While there are consistent differences in favor of the precooled 
fruit, these are not nearly so striking as the differences between the 
carefully and commercially handled lots, and although they bring 
out to some extent the value of precooling, they emphasize most 
strongly the importance of careful handling. The fruit in the pre- 
cooling experiments was usually cooled to a temperature of 40° F. 
10980°— Bull. 331—16 2 
