FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
45 
very qualities (thin skin and full to burst¬ 
ing with delicious juice) calls for extra 
care all the way through, and in that, I 
am afraid, most of us are not doing our 
best at all. The past season was opened 
with shipments of fruit as green as the 
leaves on the trees; it is no trouble at all 
to color an orange, but it is impossible 
to make an unripe fruit fit to eat, and 
pretty nearly so to get a buyer for second 
lot after sampling first. Some early or¬ 
anges are ripe enough inside before the 
rind is fully colored and should be ship¬ 
ped and so prolong the season; but until 
you yourself enjoy eating them they 
should be left on the trees. 
Then, unless you have been in the mar¬ 
kets and actually seen condition on arrival 
of many of the shipments, you have no 
idea of the amount of decay. The per¬ 
centage of shipments arriving in bad or¬ 
der is responsible for continual lowering 
of the markets; for you can bet your last 
dollar that if the buyer sees any decay 
at all ( and he will see it if it is there) , he 
will buy at a price allowing for double 
what he suspects is there. 
Now, it is not enough for oranges to 
arrive sound; they must stay so until the 
retailer can sell them and the consumer 
eat them. Our fruit not standing up is 
responsible for the tremendous margin 
the retailer exacts. 
Then, again, no orange that has been 
in contact with a decaying orange has 
the fresh, inviting flavor that we must 
furnish our customers in order to secure 
consumption at good prices for the size 
of crops in sight. 
The wide range of prices the past sea¬ 
son shows that the buyers are ready to 
pay well for what they want. For in¬ 
stance, auction market sales New York 
February 26th Florida 1.20 to 3.25, Feb¬ 
ruary 27th 1.25 to 5.20, and 29th Florida 
1.25 to 5.65, California 1.65 to 3.10, 
Porto Rico 1.10 to 1.55 for oranges and 
grapefruit, these date from 1.12^4 to 
8.62^2. The growers getting 3.10 to 5.65 
for oranges and 8.62for grapefruit 
were getting rich; the others, I guess not. 
Part of our marketing troubles the past 
season were from causes beyond our con¬ 
trol, national financial troubles and 
drought causing summer-bloom fruit of 
different ages; but this trouble was in¬ 
creased by many shipping all ages to¬ 
gether, which, with decay, soon brought 
our markets too low for any profit. 
The Agricultural Department, in bul¬ 
letin 123, clearly shows the cause and the 
practical —not theoretical, mind you, but 
entirely practical remedy for most of the 
decay and we had best be getting busy 
studying and following. 
Putting me on this committee means, 
I suppose, that I am to give my own 
packing methods and SO' help start the 
discussion. We use the cloth-lined, rattan 
picking baskets, strap that goes over 
shoulder, of wide webbing, hung low 
enough so the elbow just clears the bas¬ 
ket, which is then where the forearm 
reaches the bottom of the basket; the 
fruit is placed in basket, not dropped. We 
round off ends of bent-blade scissors 
blunt, and pick all bottom fruit before 
using ladders. The picking “boss” sees 
that a picker slips his basket off his shoul¬ 
der, laying a dozen or so oranges in bot¬ 
tom of box and then tipping basket with 
one hand eases fruit into box with the 
other, and he puts his ticket in box as 
filled. Hand holes in field boxes are not 
cut clear through and so avoid finger-nail 
cuts, and boxes set down, not dropped at 
all. At the packing-house the fruit goes 
to grading bench, cloth-lined, and with 
