FLORIDA ,STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
71 
methods entirely, handled their fruit care¬ 
fully, and last year at the time we were 
in California, their sales were as near the 
top as anybody else. Their fruit was car¬ 
rying perfectly on account of the careful 
handling. 
By the way, I want to mention right 
here, that the National Packing Company 
is not icing a single car of fruit from Cal¬ 
ifornia. They are shipping the fruit 
packed so as to permit perfect ventilation, 
and are having perfect success. 
Now about that washer; we have lots 
of smutty fruit, we washed some of the 
fruit and finally abandoned washing be¬ 
cause the fruit was being so badly in¬ 
jured, and I didn’t like to ship it, as dirty 
and smutty as it was. I came up and 
looked at Mr. Temple’s packing house, 
but I did not find a washer that seemed 
to exactly meet my ideas. I made up my 
mind, after thinking it over, that I want¬ 
ed to get as near the motion of one’s 
hands in washing oranges, as possible; 
that is, I wanted a scrubbing motion and 
have the oranges turned at the same time. 
I think we have solved the problem and 
feel sure that we have a successful ma¬ 
chine that will wash grapefruit and or¬ 
anges and tangerines and handle them as 
carefully. 
The weight of the orange resting on 
the brushes is the only pressure it gets. 
The fruit runs down a cylinder brush 
about eight inches in diameter; as it goes 
down there is no other pressure but its 
own weight. At the same time, it rolls 
back against a flat brush which is moved 
back and forth by an eccentric, three 
inches. That turns the orange every time 
it moves, and when the orange comes out 
it is perfectly clean except for live scale. 
A Member: Does the fruit go through 
any water? 
Mr. Skinner: The water is sprinkled 
on it. 
Mr. Williams : We cannot put up any¬ 
thing as elaborate as that. We want some¬ 
thing cheaper for our packing house where 
we pack our own fruit. I am satisfied 
with a machine that will clean the orange 
and take off any scale. We haven’t the 
whitefly now, but we know we will have 
it in a short time. 
I would like to ask Mr. Skinner if his 
dryer is a solid belt of canvas or duck. 
Mr. Skinner: The one I have now is 
made with a sprocket chain on each side 
of a w'ide strip, say thirty inches. We 
rather think in the packing house that a 
cotton belt seems to absorb too much wa¬ 
ter; however, the cotton belt you saw at 
Mr. Temple’s would give less trouble. 
The air that is forced through would keep 
the belt dry. 
Now, the sprocket chain we have been 
using has been giving trouble, I am free 
to say that. If you get one sprocket 
more on one side of the chain than you 
do on the other, there certainly will be. 
There is no patent on this dryer, and I 
think Mr. Chase, Dr. Inman and one or 
two others have sent men there to get 
data about one thing and another prepara¬ 
tory to putting it up in their houses. I 
think I might be able to get this data pub¬ 
lished. 
Mr. Williams: When will the ma¬ 
chine be put on the market ? 
Mr. Skinner: I am getting material 
for 25 of the washers together, and sup- 
