94 BULLETIN 274, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
in the car. At the second inspection, after six days in the car, the 
immediate lots had 16.9 per cent of decay as against 38.7 per cent 
of decay for the delayed berries, and at the end ‘of the 8- day period 
the immediate lots showed 30.2 per cent of decay as against 50.4 per 
cent of decay in the delayed fruit. The inspections one day later are 
equally striking and convincing. These results emphasize further 
the importance of protecting the fruit after picking from undue ex- 
posure to the sun and of getting it under refrigeration quickly. 
PRECOOLING EXPERIMENTS. 
In the precooling experiment with red raspberries at Puyallup 
during the season of 1911, it was not possible to combine the careful- 
handling investigations with precooling. The precooling tests in- 
og ‘therefore, only commercially handled lots. The precooling 
TAS accomplished by means of the portable ammonia plant of the 
IMMEDIATE DELAYED 
PER CENT DECAY FER CLIVT DECAY 
45 49 3s 30 25 20 1s 10.5 ° te) 5 10 15 20 25 30 
|FOUR DAYS IN CAR 
WEEE 7.10 on witorawaL 27.7 [GSS vam 
TTT 8.3 one cay water 395 (OOOO 
SIX DAYS _IN CAR 
ESTE 16.9 ON WITHDRAWAL 38.7 ERED 
TOT) 28.3 ONE DAY LATER. 54.5 |] iii ii 7 
_EIGHT DAYS IN CAR. 
RENN 20.208 WITHORAWAL 50.4 Re 
qe J 43.5 one DAY LATER 621 (00 
ie. 20. Diagram illustrating the percentage of decay in red raspberries of immediate 
and del ayed loading, season of 1911, representing comparable lots of fruit, the 
immediate loaded as soon as brought in from the field, the delayed held over until the 
next day before being placed in the refrigerator car. Both lots were held in an iced 
car at Puyallup, Wash. 
Department of Agriculture, both before and after loading the fruit 
in the cars. For the warehouse precooling test—cooling before 
Joadi efrigerator car was used as a warehouse cooling room 
by putting in a false Aeor and ceiling, and the fruit loaded into the 
car was cooled by forcing the cold air from the precooling plant 
under and through the false floor and the fruit. After cooling, the 
fruit was transferred into another pre-iced refrigerator car for 
shipment, the loading being done through a canvas ‘hood to protect 
the fruit from contact with the warm outside air. Only a few tests 
were made with this outfit. 
Most of the precooling tests were made with fully loaded ears, 
the cold air being forced in one bunker through the fruit and taken 
out at the other bunker and back to the plant for recooling. It was 
not practicable to obtain inspections at the market end, and therefore 
marked crates from the. precooled cars, together with check erates 
of the same fruit nonprecooled, were held in an iced.car for four, 
six, and eight days. In most cases the average temperatures of the 
fruit in the precooled cars were reduced to about 40°, the initial 
temperatures being often above 70° F. 
