966 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. XXVIII, No. 9 
275 fruit originally given each treatment. There is some difference in favor of 
the 10 per cent as compared with the 5 per cent borax dipping treatment. 
It is possible that soaking tests of several minutes in the warm solution 
would show an increased effectiveness. The question requires further testing 
under commercial conditions of handling the fruit. 
In packing houses having soaking-tank equipment a convenient place 
for applying the borax treatment would be in this tank. Usually the fruit 
passes from the soaking tank to 
scrubbing brushes over which 
streams of water play. These 
would wash off most or all of 
the borax. In the absence of a 
soaking tank, or for the purpose 
of leaving as much as possible 
to dry on the fruit surface, the 
borax solution might be played 
over the scrubbing brushes in 
small streams from perforated 
pipes leading from overhead 
tanks, or some atomizing device 
might be used just before the 
fruit enters the drier. Where 
polishing brushes are used after 
the fruit has dried, much of the 
borax coating would be re¬ 
moved. Tests were made to 
determine whether the removal 
of the borax coating, either by 
washing the freshly treated fruit 
or by brushing those on which 
the borax had dried, would ma¬ 
terially lessen the protective ef¬ 
fect. The fruit was heavily in¬ 
oculated and was packed away 
between layers of moist paper 
at room temperature. Figure 5 
shows the average results of 
seven separate tests, five with 
lemons, and two with oranges, 
totaling 340 fruits. The 
strength of the borax solution 
was 5 per cent for five of the 
tests and 10 per cent for two. 
These results indicate that 
Fig. 5.—Percentages of blue-mold rot developing in citrus fruit removal of the coating of borax 
treated with borax solution (two tests), treated with borax really makes little difference. 
This is at variance with the 
working hypothesis on the basis 
of which this work was undertaken. It may be that borax penetrates to some ex¬ 
tent the tissues, especially at wounds, and thus has a residuaFeffect even though the 
surface crystals are not present in quantity. However, one would naturally sup¬ 
pose that a surface coating of small crystals of an antiseptic^substance that would 
readily dissolve in any moisture that would allow spore germination would give 
solution and later washed, treated with borax solution and 
later brushed, and untreated (two tests) during 21 days 
