54 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
the same machine being handled by two 
different parties. It happened that in one 
place a machine was causing consider¬ 
able—that is, we were getting a large per¬ 
centage of decayed fruit from the lot 
washed with that machine. The house 
had great faith in the machine itself, but 
we were almost ready to condemn it. We 
don’t, as a rule, advocate or condemn any 
machine. However, we happened to run 
across a case of the same machine being 
used with practically no decay at all in 
another part of the State. This as you 
see, brings us back to the old question of 
the “man behind the gun.” 
Now, as to the matter of long stems; 
that is a very important matter. Your 
fruit is very tender; much more so than 
the California fruit; full of juice and 
thin skinned. In the washing, the or¬ 
anges are knocking against each other; if 
there is a single orange with a long and 
jagged stem, it may do a whole lot of 
damage. 
Another matter comes to* my mind, and 
that is the clippers. You have to watch 
out very carefully to keep them in good 
condition. You will find that your work 
will be much more satisfactory if the 
clippers are kept sharp and close so that 
you do not have a jagged stem. We find 
a great deal of difference when the clip¬ 
per is kept tight instead of loose and dull. 
When the clipper is in such bad shape 
that the stem is broken off instead of 
clean cut, it leaves a sharp point or 
points that will do a great deal of injury. 
Mr. Hart: I think it makes a great 
difference as to the clippers you use. I 
have clippers which have been sent to me 
to test. I won’t say that I have had sam¬ 
ples of every kind of clipper, but I have 
had a good many. I have not reported 
on but one or two of them because I have 
found that they were not properly made. 
A great many of them have the bevel side 
on the side next the orange and it would 
be so long that you could not get close 
enough to the orange to cut it off prop¬ 
erly. To 1 get that bevel just right seems 
to be the most difficult thing for the man¬ 
ufacturers to do. 
Mr. Stubenrauch: I don’t think anv 
« 
of them get it just right, Mr. Hart. I 
have never seen one that was just right. 
Mr. Hart: I attacked that problem 
and got results that were pretty satisfac¬ 
tory, but afterwards there was careless¬ 
ness and the clippers were not kept in 
first class shape. To get the best results, 
the clippers must be given attention, but 
if the clippers are made right, you will 
escape getting the clipper cut fruit. 
Mr. Temple: Mr. Hart stated that 
while he had had no experience with the 
brush washer, he does not like it. Now, 
I would not discuss the brush washer if 
I was not familiar with it and had not 
used it. I have used two all winter. On 
one occasion, when some tests were made, 
some fruit was packed, unwashed; other 
fruit was packed, washed through the 
brush washers. At the end of three 
weeks we opened the fruit and found 
three decayed oranges in the box of un¬ 
washed fruit and two in the box of 
washed fruit. After the fruit was open¬ 
ed and examined, it stood in the pack¬ 
ing house for more than two weeks and 
finally they asked me what to do with the 
brush-washed fruit. I told them to re¬ 
pack it and send it to a hospital in Or¬ 
lando. We didn’t want to ship re-packed 
fruit. They repacked the fruit, sent it 
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