20 BULLETIN 274, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
TABLE 1.—Decay in carefully handled and commercially handled red raspberries 
held in an iced car at Puyallup, Wash., in 1911. 
Decay on withdrawal. Decay 1 day after withdrawal. 
i ee ee ee SS ee 
Time in iced car. Carefully Commercially Carefully Commercially 
handled. handled. handled. handled. 
Per cent. Per cent. Per cent. Per cent. 
AS ABYSS ete ee tere eae eRe ee 0.4 4.6 1.0 ie 
G dayses 5.2522 es ee Ee Pee ee 2 9.9 3.8 31.9 
Sidaysicsos eee eee ee eee ee ee eee 252 26.7 8.1 47.6 
MARKET-HOLDING TESTS. 
One-half of the fruit from each withdrawal was held one day 
under ordinary market conditions and another determination of 
decay and deterioration was made. The result of these inspections 
is even more striking than of those made on withdrawal. This is 
self-evident when allowance is made for the extremely favorable 
conditions existing for the development of mold or deterioration 
when fruit is exposed to contact with warm air. Imperfections or 
injuries due to improper and rough handling, as well as overripe 
berries, offer the maximum conditions for spoilage. The carefully 
handled fruit held four days in the refrigerator car and one day 
after withdrawal developed 1 per cent of decay, the commercially 
handled 17.5 per cent. The after-withdrawal inspections of the 
6-day lot showed 3.8 per cent of decay in the carefully handled and 
31.8 per cent of decay in the commercially handled fruit, while simi- 
lar inspections of the 8-day lots showed 8.1 per cent of decay in the 
carefully handled and 47.6 per cent in the commercially handled 
berries. Figure 17 brings out most strikingly these differences and 
the relation of handling to keeping quality. 
From this showing it is safe to assume that fruit handled with the 
proper degree of care can be shipped fully twice the present distance, 
or a distance representing a haul of 4,000 miles, as against a 2,000- 
mile haul for ordinarily handled fruit. This assumption is further 
strengthened and the results in 1911 further corroborated by the re- 
sults of the careful- handling work during the season of 1912, when a 
series of actual shipments was made to Grand Forks, N. Dak. The 
fruit held in the iced car at Puyallup the previous season was really 
under more favorable conditions than exist in a fully loaded refrig- 
erator car, as the holding car was only partially filled and the rate 
of cooling of all lots was more rapid than in fully loaded cars. It 
was therefore deemed necessar y to obtain some data from actual ship- 
ping experiments. 
Great difficulty was experienced in procuring the desired number 
of cars consigned to any one market, but arrangements were made to 
place the experimental crates in cars destined for Grand Forks or 
routed through that point, opening the cars and withdrawing the 
crates in transit. The crates were transferred to an iced car “held 
there, the transfer being made quickly after wrapping in thick can- 
vas to protect the contents from contact with the warmer air and pre- 
vent a cohsequent condensation of moisture. The fruit was trans- 
ferred to the refrigerator car and held for different lengths of time 
after arrival there, in order that conditions representing hauls of 
