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© COLORING SATSUMA ORANGES IN ALABAMA. 19 
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ing is the most reliable. One should not stay in a coloring room 
more than a minute or two at any time while there is gas present, 
as severe headache and nausea are likely to result. If the concen- 
tration of gas is strong, a prolonged stay in the coloring room is 
liable to induce sudden collapse or even death. For these reasons it 
is well, as a matter of precaution, to post danger notices on the door 
of each coloring room. 
Present experience indicates that the coloring process should be 
‘intermittent. A convenient and successful practice has been to 
Keep the gas in the coloring room during the period of the regular 
working day of about 10 hours. At night the room is ventilated, 
as already described. Circumstances, of course, May make varia- 
tions in this program desirable. If the room is not filled and ready 
to start until evening, a day may be saved by immediately turning 
‘on the gas for 8 or 10 consecutive hours. The following day the 
regular program may be followed. 
TIME REQUIRED. 
Ordinarily coloring will be complete in four days if the fruit is 
sufficiently matured and carries at least 5 per cent of yellow color 
when placed in the room. In proportion as the oranges have col- 
ored on the tree the time required in the coloring room will be 
lessened. In practice it will be found desirable at times, in order 
to keep the field forces busy and to save time in the packing house 
as well, to send in fruit so nearly colored that only a greenish tinge 
‘is noticeable. When such fruit is given one day in the coloring 
room a full uniform color will usually develop. 
In bringing out the desirable full golden yellow color charac- 
teristic of the Satsuma orange the greatest difficulty will be experi- 
enced with the first pick of the season. Sometimes in the early 
fruit that is processed four days in the usual way the color devel- 
‘oped will be a lenion yellow instead of the desirable golden yellow. 
Such fruit should be colored more slowly by turning in the gas for 
) perhaps two hours in the morning and again in the afternoon each 
day for five or six days, keeping the humidity high and the tem- 
perature as near 75° F. as possible. This ordinarily will apply to 
only the first one or two carloads to be colored. 
THE SOLIDS-ACID TEST. : 
_ Great care should be exercised to see that all oranges to be col- 
-ored will pass the Federal requirements as set forth in Food Inspec- 
tion Decision 182, United States Department of Agriculture, 1921, 
which requires that the juice of oranges entering interstate com- 
merce shall contain “not less than eight parts of soluble solids to 
¥ each part of acid calculated as citric acid without water of erystalli- 
zation.” The coloring of oranges which do not meet this require- 
ment could be interpreted as an effort to conceal inferiority. This 
precaution will insure the market against fruit that is immature 
and unpalatable and help maintain the reputation of the Satsuma 
orange for high quality and flavor. Fruit that does not pass the 
solids-acid test and is colored by the process described in this bulle- 
tin can not, according to the regulation, be shipped in interstate 
commerce. The solids-acid test is simple and only requires careful 
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