138 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
er that the. citrus fruit product industry 
in Florida is still in its infancy. 
It is not the purpose of this paper to 
discuss, except in an indirect way, the 
various reasons why this industry is not 
better developed. I shall rather confine 
myself to my subject as it appears on the 
program and discuss some of the prob¬ 
lems which are met in the preservation of 
citrus fruit juices. 
There are several reasons why it is 
desirable to produce juices, as well as the 
more usual products such as marmalade 
and candy. The volume of fruit to be 
utilized is so great that we need a variety 
of products in order to get better distri¬ 
bution. The juice is the, real, essential 
meat of the fruit—practically the only 
constituent for which the fresh fruit is 
eaten The bottled juice more nearly re¬ 
sembles the original flavor of the fruit 
than do any of the other products thus 
far produced commercially. The juice 
requires less sugar than do such products 
as marmalade, and candy. There is an 
enormous demand for all kinds of soft 
drinks, particularly in these days of des¬ 
ert dryness (of course this argument 
does not apply to Miami, thanks to its 
nearness to Bimini!). Not only are soft 
drinks in demand, but those with citrus 
fruit flavors are. especially popular, as 
evidenced by the large number of imita¬ 
tions on the market. These considera¬ 
tions leave little room to doubt that there 
is a real demand for citrus fruit juices. 
What, then, are the characteristics of 
a desirable bottled juice, and what are 
the difficulties to be overcome in produc¬ 
ing it? 
It would seem perfectly obvious that 
the desirable thing is to preserve the juice 
just as it comes from the fruit with all 
of its original flavor and appearance, so 
that the consumer may pour from the 
bottle the same identical juice that he 
might squeeze from fresh fruit. This 
has always been the high ideal of those 
scientists who have worked with other 
fruit juices, and it has been the ideal of 
most of those working with citrus juices. 
But the difficulties to be. overcome are 
much greater than those encountered with 
most of the other fruits. 
First of all comes the mechanical prob¬ 
lem of extracting the juice. With grapes, 
apples, or berries, the fruit can be chop¬ 
ped up and placed directly in presses, but 
citrus fruits are built along different 
lines and have to be handled with more 
respect. Although there are a few au¬ 
thorities who recommend pressing the 
whole fruit, most of them agree that it 
is very desirable if not absolutely neces¬ 
sary to peel the fruit first. If the fruit is 
not peeled, the juice will contain large 
amounts of essential oil and of gluco- 
side, which in the case of grapefruit is ex¬ 
tremely bitter. A reasonable amount of 
the essential oil is not objectionable in 
the fresh squeezed juice, since it adds to 
the characteristic citrus fruit flavor, but 
in most cases such juice will, on keeping, 
develop a decidedly unpleasant “turpen- 
tiney” flavor due to changes which take 
place in the, oil. It may be possible to 
work out methods for treating the juice 
so as to destroy the bitterness and prevent 
changes in the oil. In that case it would 
doubtless be much more economical to 
omit the peeling process. 
