18 BULLETIN 1159, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
ing the market. It is sometimes a good practice, however, to sort 
out the oranges showing 80 per cent or more yellow color and pu 
them in a separate coloring room, or even near the door in a room — 
with the others, so they can be removed in about 24 to 36 hours, 
-when they are uniformly colored. Careful handling of the fruit 
is very important and should be insisted upon in picking, grading, 
and packing. 
FILLING THE HOUSE. 
The green oranges should be hauled immediately from the field in 
the regular field crate and stacked five or six crates high in the 
coloring room, with an aisle through the center of the room. When 
the room is filled it should be closed up tight and the gas turned on. 
HUMIDITY OF THE ROOMS. 
If a humidifier is not used, several wet bags or some material of 
a similar nature should be hung over the edges of the boxes along 
the aisle. If the weather is hot and dry, it is well to keep the 
ground below the fruit wet by throwing a few buckets of water on 
the floor in the aisle. With these precautions the shrinkage should 
be kept down to 1 per cent or below. 
OPTIMUM TEMPERATURE AND VENTILATION. 
If it can be avoided, the temperature should not exceed 80° F. 
In hot weather the best and perhaps the only practical method of — 
keeping the temperature down is to keep the humidity high and to 
open at night all the ventilators and doors, including the small 
doors below the floor. In this way the cool, moist night air, having 
free circulation, will cool the fruit so that the following day a con- 
siderably lower temperature may be maintained than would be pos- 
sible if the house were kept closed at night. On the other hand, 
the temperature should not be below 70° F. or the coloring will be 
slowed down and the fruit may be injured by prolonged exposure to 
the gas. Therefore if the weather is cool the house should be kept 
closed at night to conserve the heat that accumulates during the day. 
If this procedure will not suffice, then it is sometimes advisable to 
put a small kerosene heater in the room. If a generator house is 
used for furnishing the gas it is a comparatively simple matter to 
produce more heat to meet such a condition, without increasing the 
volume of gas, by burning one or two extra burners without the 
gas-generating attachments. 
AMOUNT OF GAS. 
As there is no means of measuring the concentration of gas in a 
coloring room, the operator must learn by experience to determine ~ 
the amount present. This is not at all difficult. The amount of gas — 
necessary is comparatively small, as with an oversupply there — 
seems to be danger of loosening the stems on the fruit. On enter- — 
ing a well-regulated room one should experience only a slight dis- 
agreeable odor and a burning sensation of the eyes. It is not neces- 
sary to stay in the room, as the first sensation experienced on enter- 
ee 
