6 BULLETIN 1290, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
breaking the boxes and injuring the fruit with the ropes. The 
boxes are held securely, so that there is no danger of falling out 
unless the sling is inverted. 
STOWING THE FRUIT 
Unlike transportation by rail, little or no experimental work had 
been undertaken to determine the best methods of loading for ocean 
movement. The problem is more like stacking fruit in a precooling 
room or storage plant than loading in refrigerator cars. The results 
desired are practically the same as those sought in precooling rooms 
or refrigerator cars — to load as much fruit as possible in a given 
space and so arrange it that it can be cooled down quickly to a good 
refrigerating temperature. This, of course, means that it must be 
stowed so that air can circulate through the fruit to cool it. It is 
important, also, that the boxes of fruit be placed in the hold in 
such a way that the}^ will not be thrown about by the motion of the 
ship and yet so that they can be readily unloaded at destination. 
In the experiments under consideration several methods of stowing 
were tested in an endeavor to find those best suited to the type of 
refrigeration employed on this ship. 
Dunnage was used in order to secure air circulation and to test its 
value in bringing about better refrigeration and a quicker cooling of 
the fruit. The term " dunnage " is applied here to strips of board 
about 1 inch thick placed on the boxes as they are stacked in the 
hold, much as the stripping is placed on boxes in refrigerator cars. 
Three different methods of placing dunnage were tried in the 
earlier experiments, two of which were abandoned. In the first 
method the dunnage was placed fore and aft, the fruit boxes being 
placed with their longitudinal axes athwartships. For rapid loading 
this necessitated very short pieces of dunnage, causing considerable 
loss of time. The next method was the use of long, broad strips of 
dunnage, the boxes being loaded with their longitudinal axes fore 
and aft, half the width of the dunnage overlapping the ends of the 
boxes. The stack, or height, was completed and the next stack placed 
in the same manner except that one end was forced under the over- 
lapping dunnage in the preceding tier. It was thought that this 
method would conserve dunnage and give satisfactory results, but 
owing to the uneven stowage caused by the irregularities in the pack- 
ages great difficulties were encountered in securing a uniform stack, 
and considerable space was lost. The second method was attempted 
primarily to save dunnage, but it was found that it was not econom- 
ical because of the time consumed in stowing the fruit. 
The third method and the one adopted for general use was that in 
which two pieces of dunnage were used across the ends of the boxes 
in each layer, the boxes being stowed with their longitudinal axes 
fore and aft and the dunnage athwartships. Although this increased 
the quantity of dunnage used, it reduced the labor and facilitated the 
speed and ease with which the fruit was stowed. It also made pos- 
sible the use of narrower strips of dunnage. 
To determine the practical advantage to be secured from the 
judicious use of dunnage so far as obtaining better refrigeration is 
