84 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
is not necessary to do any damage. 
Three years ago when Mr. G. Harold 
Powell, of the Department of Agricul¬ 
ture, began his work with the California 
citrus fruits, he found as high as 15 or 20 
per cent, of the crop made subject to de¬ 
cay from this thing alone. He and his 
associates made records on hundreds of 
boxes, with the result that at that time a 
5 per cent, injury was as low as could of¬ 
ten be found; frequently the per cent, ran 
to 25, not infrequently to 40 or even 50, 
and with some individual pickers even to a 
higher amount. The shape of the Navel 
orange as grown in California, with a 
sunken area around the stem, favors this 
injury with the clipper. In attempting 
to cut the stem as close as possible, the 
shears punctured the skin. To a much less 
extent, this damage is found in Florida. 
The round orange is more easily clipped 
with a short stem, and there is much less 
danger of its being cut. A count of a 
considerable number of boxes show 5.9 
per cent, clipper cut. In many cases no 
injury was done at all, and in a few the 
percentage ran high. 
Mr. Powell has demonstrated by many 
shipping tests, and it is accepted as a fact 
among California shippers, that an orange 
with a broken skin is liable to decay in 
transit. Boxes of that class of fruit have 
reached New York City this past season 
with as many as 105 rotten oranges in a 
box of 126s. When injured fruit is ship¬ 
ped under ice or during cold weather, the 
decay upon arrival is often small. This 
same fruit shows a rapid breaking down, 
however, when it is held a few days upon 
the market. 
The following chart will indicate the 
amount of decay in injured fruit as com¬ 
pared with sound lots: 
CHART I. 
Apparently free from mechanical 
injury. 2 per cent decay. 
Mechanically injured.48 per cent decay. 
The average for the sound fruit is 2.9 
per cent, decay, while the injured fruit 
ran as high as 48.7 per cent, rotten. 
These figures are the results of the work 
done in Florida, and while the tests have 
been few in number, yet they only confirm 
the results obtained in California with 
series extending over a long period of 
time. 
LONG STEM PUNCTURES. 
Another type of injury is the punctur¬ 
ing done by long stems. Some pickers 
leave a considerable number of stems suffi¬ 
ciently long to pucture other fruit. This 
damage may be done as the fruit is drop¬ 
ped into the picking bag, from the move¬ 
ment of the oranges in the bag, in the 
hauling, or somewhere in the packing 
house. 
INJURY FROM DROPPING. 
It was a question, however, whether 
all the decay which develops in a car of 
oranges in transit from Florida could be 
attributed to the above causes. With 3 or 
4 per cent, thorn punctured fruit, 8 or 10 
per cent, clipper cuts, and some additional 
stem punctured oranges, it is difficult to 
explain a 40 or 50 per cent, decay. These 
high percentages seem to indicate that at 
times at least nearly or all of the fruit 
was made susceptible to decay. To a fruit 
man, unaccustomed to your methods of 
hervesting and packing, the most probable 
explanation of this condition would be in 
the amount of rough handling and drop¬ 
ping to which the fruit is subjected. The 
picker in his hurry lets the fruit fall into 
