FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
85 
his basket or bag and generally takes pains 
to give each orange an extra shove with 
his shears as he aims the fruit toward the 
basket. He often holds the branch with 
one hand and allows the oranges to drop 
the 18 inches or 2 feet into the basket. 
In an ordinary gang, a drop of 12 inches 
seems about the minimum which any or¬ 
ange receives in the picking; two feet is 
not uncommon. In pouring into the field 
crate, which is 13 inches high itself, the 
mouth of the bag is held 6 inches above 
the box, and here is another drop of 18 
inches onto the bottom. Not counting the 
rough handling in loading and in hauling, 
sometimes over very rough roads, there 
is another very dangerous drop into the 
hopper. This is often large and the fruit 
rolls down a steep gravity run and hiits 
again.. With another tumble into the 
bins the oranges are ready to pack. The 
question then is, does dropping make the 
oranges susceptible tO' decay? The only 
way to settle such a question is by experi¬ 
menting. Pick carefully some boxes of 
oranges, pack half the lot as they are, 
drop the other half a certain known dis¬ 
tance—we selected 18 inches—^then pack 
them and hold along with the first lot for 
10 days or two weeks. Do this, not once, 
nor twice, but a hundred times, and you 
will begin to know whether an 18 incli 
drop will cause any decay. Here are some 
of the results of our first year’s work. 
These experiments were done in your own 
packing houses, through the courtesy and 
excellent co-operation of the owners and 
foremen. At the same time that the ex¬ 
perimental lots were packed, several box¬ 
es from the regular house pack of the 
same fruit were set aside. These were 
picked, hauled, and packed in the usual 
manner and by the regular workmen. In 
preparing the series of dropped fruit, un¬ 
usual care was taken to have the oranges 
picked carefully and not dropped into the 
bag and box. All mechanically injured 
fruit was removed and there were no long 
stems. Just before packing each orange 
was held 18 inches above the floor or bot¬ 
tom of the box and dropped separately 
this distance. 
CHART II. 
Carefully handled... 1.9 per cent, decay. 
Dropped 18 inches. . 32.0 per cent, decay. 
Regular house pack. .42.0 per cent, decay. 
CHART III. 
Carefully handled... 2.8 per cent, decay. 
Dropped 18 inches... 13.0 per cent, decay. 
Regular house pack. .21.5 per cent, decay. 
CHART IV. 
Carefully handled. . . 0.0 per cent, decay. 
Dropped 18 inches . . .21.8 per cent, decay. 
Regular house pack. .18.7 per cent, decay. 
CHART V. 
Carefully handled. .. lo.o per cent, decay. 
Dropped 18 inches. . 77.0 per cent, decay. 
Regular house pack. .61.0 per cent, decay. 
Mechanically injured..98.0 per cent.decay. 
CHART VI. SUMMARY. 
Carefully handled... 2.9 per cent, decay. 
Dropped 18 inches. .20.1 per cent, decay. 
Regular house pack. .22.9 per cent, decay. 
Charts II to V give the results of some 
of the individual experiments. Many 
more were made and chart VI summar¬ 
izes the results of them all. The only 
difference between the fruit which show¬ 
ed 2.9 per cent, decay and that which con- 
