FLORIDA (STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
53 
to the hospital, but it seems they had just 
received a consignment of other fruit 
' sent to them. It stayed around the hos¬ 
pital for awhile, and they finally turned it 
over to a grocery store to sell the fruit 
and turn the money over to them, as they 
needed the money more than the fruit. 
When I discovered that a grocery 
store was selling some of our fruit at re¬ 
tail, I looked into the matter to see how 
they got hold of it, and traced back and 
found out that it was the self-same box 
of fruit. I watched very closely the sale 
of that fruit to find what percentage of 
decay showed up in it. The fruit was all 
sold at retail, taking probably two weeks 
in the sale, and while the unwashed fruit 
showed almost one-half decay, the re¬ 
packed, washed fruit did not have a sin¬ 
gle sign of decay when it was sold here 
seven weeks after it was originally pack¬ 
ed. 
Mr. Kilgore: We had a washing ex¬ 
periment in our packing house which 
turned out practically the same. The 
company got in a new brush washer. We 
were afraid to use it, but to get it “bro¬ 
ken in” we washed the fruit in a car 
which had been standing on our siding 
for some time. After the oranges were 
washed, the water was pretty greasy. To 
see how the experiment worked, we pack¬ 
ed a few crates of the washed and of the 
unwashed fruit. The unwashed fruit 
rotted very badly and the washed fruit 
rotted very little. 
Mr. Stubenrauch: Your washed 
fruit was probably selected fruit. Of 
course, in that case it would be hard to 
make a fair comparison. 
Mr. Kilgore : There was no selection. 
Mr. Stubenrauch: I think all of this 
discussion confirms the facts brought by 
our work regarding washing. All of the 
gentlemen who have shown that they are 
not getting decay following washing are 
in a class of handlers far above the gen¬ 
eral average, and the handling of the 
fruit in their houses is being very care¬ 
fully done. Our results show, both here 
in Florida, and in California, that every 
extra process or handling that has to be 
given the fruit is a place where injury 
is liable to occur, and that where these 
processes are necessary to place the fruit 
in marketable condition, the necessity for 
extreme care becomes doubly important. 
Mi*. Stockbridge: Speaking about the 
additional care that has so much to do 
with results. The packing of fruit cer¬ 
tainly has a great influence on the amount 
of decay. I would mention that I have 
always taken pretty good care of my 
fruit and yet in spite of ordinary precau¬ 
tions, the percentages of decay were 
quite large. My crop of 1908 showed 
that the average percentage of decay was 
between 15 per cent, and 20 per cent., 
and yet my fruit was pretty well put up, 
too, and I suppose that as the average 
man goes, I put my fruit up about as well 
as the best of them and took about the 
same precautions. 
Now, after attending the meeting of 
the society at Daytona last year, and 
hearing the report of the committee on 
the investigation of the packing methods 
of California, I went to my grove and 
talked the matter over with my superin¬ 
tendent and when we came to ship the 
next crop, that is, the crop of 1909, I 
made a careful test of what I hoped were 
better methods. I shipped a carload to 
Atlanta and had it opened by three or 
