FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
67 
sight over his inspectors and pickers, and 
would watch closely to see that they were 
handling the fruit in accordance with the 
rules. In addition to this there was a 
general chief inspector, not attached to 
any gang or picking crew, whose business 
it was to go from grove to grove, appear¬ 
ing at the most unexpected and some¬ 
times inopportune times, to check up the 
work of the gangs. This chief inspector 
would go to three or four field crates that 
were ready for hauling and examine the 
oranges one by one to see if any mistake 
had been made by the inspector whose 
ticket was in the box. The box thus in¬ 
spected and tagged was then loaded on 
wagons, every one of which was equip¬ 
ped with springs, the load covered with 
tarpaulins to protect the fruit from 
weather, and hauled to the packing house. 
As soon as possible after the boxes 
were received at the packing house each 
box was emptied on a grading table, 
along which the oranges would roll. In¬ 
spectors were placed at this grading table, 
and they examined every orange as it 
went by them, while the checking clerk 
would hold in his hand the ticket which 
came from the box of oranges which was 
passing the inspectors. If one of these 
inspectors found an orange that was clip¬ 
per cut, creased, long or sharp stem, 
punctured, or in any way defective, he 
would call out whatever the defect was, 
and the checking clerk would promptly 
mark in its proper place on the ticket the 
defect so announced. As soon as the box 
of fruit had rolled by, the ticket accom¬ 
panying it would be put on file, which 
went to the office and was duly entered 
on the record, showing either for or 
against the inspector and picker hand¬ 
ling it. 
After the inspection the oranges rolled 
to the soaking tank, into which they were 
emptied. The fruit all floats on the sur¬ 
face of crystal-clear water, brought up 
from one hundred and sixty feet below 
the rock. This soaking tank serves two 
purposes—first, it prepares the oranges 
perfectly for the washing machines; 
secondly, it enables the tank inspector to 
cull out any light fruit, the rule being 
that any orange which shows to exceed 
one-eighth of its diameter above the 
water should be culled from the tank, 
while floating to the washing machines. 
It may be remarked in passing that this 
would be a very dangerous test for Cali¬ 
fornia fruit, as it would cause the culling 
of by far the most of the stuff they ship, 
while with the Florida fruit less than one 
per cent is culled for this cause, and 
much of the Florida fruit does not float 
at all, but sinks. 
When the fruit reaches the end of the 
soaking tank it is taken from the tank 
and fed automatically to the washing ma¬ 
chines, where the oranges are gently 
scrubbed with soft fibre brushes, while 
dozens of tiny sprays of clear cold water 
play on the oranges during the entire pro¬ 
cess of washing. These washing ma¬ 
chines are each capable of washing five 
cars of fruit a day. 
From the washing machine the fruit 
is automatically deposited on a carrier 
belt, which delivers it to the drying 
machine. Experience has demonstrated 
that in this house oranges can be perfectly 
dried in four minutes, in ordinary 
weather. When the humidity is very 
high on the outside, say from 95 to 100 
per cent, the fruit is a little longer dry¬ 
ing. It has been demonstrated, however, 
