8 BULLETIN 569, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
were not sorted out. Tests made for the percentage of rot in the 
sorted stock showed it to vary from about 0.1 per cent to over 2.5 per 
cent of decayed material. The apron was moving ata rate of 78 feet 
per minute. During the three days that tests were made at the plant 
several changes were instituted, among which were slowing down 
the rate of the apron, securing more women for the inspection 
service, and dividing them into squads. One squad did nothing but 
sort out the spotted tomatoes and put them in buckets the contents of 
which were trimmed by the second set to remove the rot. Tests on 
the efficiency of sorting under the changed conditions gave a range 
of from no appreciable amount of rot to 1.3 per cent. 
Factory No. 3. 
A visit made to still another plant, some of the product of which 
had been condemned the previous season, showed that the tomatoes 
were passing through one of the washers and scalders at the rate of 
490 bushels per hour. Five young boys, between the ages of 13 and 
15, were working at the sorting table. A test of the stock being 
fed to the sorting table gave about 16 per cent of rotten material. 
A similar test after sorting gave about 7.5 per cent. All the waste 
from the tomatoes removed at the peeling tables went into the 
cyclones for pulp making. 
WASHING. 
During the last few years various systems and devices have been 
tested under factory conditions and a mass of data has been collected 
bearing upon so many of the practical questions concerned in the 
production of a clean, sanitary product that it is proposed to discuss 
here the more important of these operations. __ 
Any one familiar with the canning industry must have noticed 
the changes that have taken place in recent years and the improve- 
ments that have been made in tomato-washing machinery. The choice 
of a proper washing system requires a knowledge of the specific 
conditions under which the system is to be operated in each case, 
since a system that works satisfactorily under one set of conditions 
may be inadequate elsewhere. 
In some parts of the country tomatoes are grown on a soil which 
has an abundance of sand in it and little clay. Tomatoes grown on 
such land are fairly readily cleaned by a good spraying apron 
washer. In other parts of the country the soil consists of a sticky 
clay loam, which clings so tenaciously as to make its removal by 
the spraying system alone very difficult: In such cases some sort 
of rubbing method is highly desirable. It is under such conditions 
that the rotary washers are efficient. Factory owners sometimes have 
been found who have been deceived as to the efficiency of their 
