12 BTJLLETIX 531, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
In most localities the berries are either shipped in the containers 
in which they are picked, without further handling, or emptied on 
tables, the culls removed, and the sound fruit repacked for shipment. 
The former method necessitates great care in picking; the latter 
method undoubtedly bruises the berries somewhat even when care- 
fully done. 
Practically all berries shipped from Florida are packed in quart 
cups, each cup " capped " or " plated " ; that is, the top layer consist- 
ing of berries of uniform size placed snugly together with their tips 
all pointing in the same direction. Shipments from this State are 
made at a season when no other berries are in the markets and are 
intended to supply a demand for fancy fruit. 
The strawberries are shipped in three ways. During the early 
part of the season most of them are shipped by express in iced con- 
tainers, called pony refrigerators, which hold 64, 80, or occasionally 
32 quarts each. From 75 to 250 pounds of ice is placed in an open 
pan in each refrigerator and the refrigerator tightly closed. In this 
manner berries are often shipped long distances, to New York. Bos- 
ton, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and other northern markets. 
Later in the season iced cars are shipped from the more important 
strawberry-growing centers, but the use of the pony refrigerator is 
at no time abandoned. Under favorable weather conditions many 
shipments from Florida to Washington, Baltimore, and other rela- 
tively near-by markets are made by express in open ventilated crates 
without refrigeration. The use of different methods of shipment in- 
creases the difficulty of controlling merely by refrigeration the 
growth of Rhizopus during transit and emphasizes the necessity of 
preventing the infection of the fruit. Experiments were performed 
to determine the relative importance of the various possible sources 
of infection. 
In many strawberry-growing sections it is customary to mulch 
with hay. straw, pine needles, or other material to protect the fruit 
from dirt. In other localities this practice is not followed, and 
when the fruit is picked immediately after a rain or when wet with 
dew much sand or other dirt adheres to the berries. This fruit is 
sometimes shipped to market without cleaning, but usually an 
attempt is made to avoid or correct this condition. In some locali- 
ties picking the berries early in the morning when wet with dew is 
avoided, and the dry sand is shaken off in the process of picking. 
In other places the fruit is emptied on tables covered with cloth 
and shaken gently, most of the sand being lost in this way. In 
central Florida, a region important for the earliness and length 
of its shipping season, it is customary to wash the berries when 
brought from the field. They are immersed for a. few seconds in 
a tub of water, then either packed moist or spread on a cloth frame 
