60 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
ature average of its load is reduced to 45 
degrees. 
Within the last few years there has been 
a decided drift toward the idea of pre¬ 
cooling in many of the fruit and vegetable 
centers of our country. Pre-cooling, as 
we are accustomed to speak of it, means 
a forced process of refrigeration, this be¬ 
ing done as soon after the fruit is picked 
as is consistent with modern packing and 
handling methods. This is done usually 
by means of mechanical refrigeration in 
rooms especially designed and heat insu¬ 
lated. At present there are six pre-cooling 
plants in this State and, roughly estimat¬ 
ing, they represent a capital outlay of over 
one-half million dollars. Should each one 
of these plants operate at full capacity they 
could put out a total of over 50 cars per 
day. While definite figures are impossi¬ 
ble at this time, it is safe to say that 2,000 
cars of citrus fruits and 500 cars of vege¬ 
tables will roll pre-cooled from Florida 
this season. 
If the process of pre-cooling is to be¬ 
come widely distributed over our State 
it must hold out, for our consideration, 
some basic economic merit. To date it 
bids fair to do this, as it is possible to rap¬ 
idly reduce the temperature of perishables 
to a point where decay is practically ar¬ 
rested. It also appears, from records 
carefully compiled, that under favorable 
conditions, the pre-cooled method of ship¬ 
ment can be done with financial gain as 
compared with the present standard re¬ 
frigeration method. In moving a pre- 
cooled shipment it is entirely feasible to 
properly cool the fruit within 24 hours; 
load it into a car with the bunkers filled 
with ice and then ship it to destination 
without further icing providing the time 
in transit does not exceed 11 or 12 days 
in the winter months and from 8 to 10 
days during the fall or spring months. 
The process of pre-cooling cannot be 
considered as a cure-all for our many cit¬ 
rus ills. It should only be used as an aid 
in marketing and should never be consid¬ 
ered as a preserving or pickling process. 
Let us consider the case of one single or¬ 
ange: First it becomes injured in the 
picking process; it then goes to the pack¬ 
ing house and stands there for a day or 
two, after which it is dumped into a soak¬ 
ing tank heavily charged with blue mold 
spores. From this tank it goes through 
the packing house routine and finally into 
a cooler, where the temperature is reduced 
to a point around 50 degrees. The 
chances are that this orange will never en¬ 
ter into consumption. However, if the in¬ 
jured orange had been put through the 
house in a reasonable time and had been 
properly cooled, the odds would have be¬ 
come reversed and any tendency for the 
development of decay would have prob¬ 
ably been arrested enough to allow it to 
make for its grower a satisfied final cus¬ 
tomer. 
Let us consider for a minute the diffi¬ 
culties which nature and the industry have 
devised to worry the engineer who plans 
on extracting the heat from the modern 
package of citrus fruits. An orange is 
over 90% water and water has the highest 
specific heat of any known substance. 
Added to this, nature has surrounded the 
liquid contents with a covering composed 
of light, pithy material which ranks very 
