FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
47 
trees are wet from rain or dew, if care 
is taken not to allow them to stand long- 
in the field boxes, while damp. If they 
are washed and dried right away, no harm 
will be done by their being picked when 
damp. 
I think more attention should be paid 
to the grading of the fruit, as it is very 
difficult to correct a mistake after it has 
passed the grader. There should be some 
system by which a check could be kept on 
the grader, so that you could prove that 
he is the one who made the mistake; then 
he will be more careful than he will if it 
cannot be traced to him. The grading is 
much more important than the packing, 
as it requires closer observation and at¬ 
tention to business, while packing is more 
mechanical. 
If the boss picker does his duty in see¬ 
ing that the stems are cut as they should 
be, and the fruit handled right from the 
tree to the house, and the grader does his 
work as it should be, and the fruit is load¬ 
ed properly in the car, there will be little 
complaint at the other end. But the best 
packer in the world can not overcome the 
damage done in the grove, nor discover 
all that has slipped by a careless grader. 
L. B. Skinner 
Mr. Skinner: I had intended making 
a short history of the packing house 
methods that I have seen since I went 
into the orange businesss, nearly thirty 
years ago. There has been a great evolu¬ 
tion (or should I say revolution ?), un¬ 
doubtedly. But I have had so much to 
do that I could not prepare a paper, and 
relied on my friend Mr. Stevens to give 
you the written report. 
However, I want to emphasize one or 
two things in regard to this question of 
packing fruit by up-to-date methods. 
Dr. Sadler has struck the keynote. Dr. 
Sadler’s remarks, in my opinion, go to 
the root of the question. I do not en¬ 
tirely agree with the cooking of the or¬ 
ange, and the conditions caused thereby 
are entirely different from what we have 
to deal with, and I do not think that goes 
to prove much that will help us, because 
the antiseptic conditions caused by the 
intense heat cannot be applied to> our 
packed oranges. But I do think that it 
is absolutely neecssary to get the fruit 
thoroughly dry—absolutely essential. I 
don’t think I quite agree with him that 
pre-cooling the fruit is a mistake, because 
I think the scientific experiments in 
Washington far outweigh the single car 
they shipped under refrigeration. Their 
statistics are accurate, and the list of 
them, added up and a balance struck, tell 
the story. 
The professors say that the remarks 
made about the grapefruit developing a 
little more sugar after the fruit is picked, 
will not do for us to state as a fact, but 
I tell you it is mighty pleasing to feel 
that probably it is true. 
I think that the injury is in the field— 
largely in the field. Mr. McKay has 
been at my packing house a number of 
times, and Mr. Ramsey, too, and Mr. 
McKay and Mr. Ramsey have been in the 
field. They have become acquainted with 
my foreman and my inspector and got¬ 
ten them interested. Thev have gotten 
