The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1893-01-25
For The FLORIDA AGRICULTURIsT.
Packing and Marketing Fruit.

IsT visited, q few days since an extensive orange
warehouse and sales room, in one of the large
orange receiving centres of the country. We
found there an old orange grower, that is to say
an ''old timer in the business, a man who has
been engaged in orange growing from the begin
ing, who is now gathering fruit from seed he
planted twenty-five years ago, who has been
shipping oranges from his own trees since 1875,
and who, for the past four years, has been hand
ling oranges at wholesale ION the market"
With tier after tier Of boxes piled up around us,
comprising many carloads OF various marks and
packs, the conversation naturally turned to the
subject of preparing the fruit for market.
'Is not the Florida product reaching market
in much better shape than it did few years ago."
we asked.
81 am not prepared to say that there has been
no advance in this direction, but it has certainly
been very SLOW and there is still room for i'm
provement. 1t is true We do not receive as many
miscellaneous packages of unwrapped fruit OF
mixed sizes as we used to- The establishment of
packing houses at central points throughout the
State gives the fruit as it comes to hand the ap-
pearance Of greater uniformity You will be sur
prsed however, to learn that very large pOr-
ton OF the poor pack receive, comes from
these same central packing houses We call it
professional pack You depend upon it's
being slack; as rule the fruit can all be packed
down size, that is to say the size used to pack
$50 to the box bepacked 175; the 175s will cas-
lily go 200, aid so on. Very little of it has been
sorted closely, and there is usually evidence of
rough handling. The sizes generally even
and the grading is fairly DONE"
ut is easy to understand how this comes
about. In order to reduce the cost of putting up
to the least possible sum, the various opera
lions of the packing house done by the piece.
In order to make nything, the packer must get
through from one to two hundred boxes per day,
and to enable him to do this the szer must beset
little closer and the oranges rushed into the boxes
loosely. AS a matter OF fact, the fruit in each
successive layer should be pressed into the box
Us tightly it can be forced, and when the box
is full it should not be possible to press down the
contents more than quarter OF inch The
packer should pack the fruit he gOes-no
amount of subsequent pressure will remedy loose
pack, and the man who packs fifty boxes as they
should be packed is doing good days work"
Like the packing the gathering and sorting
is done by the piece, i'll other words, handled
roughly and sorted poorly. and this means rot.
If the weather is cool and the conditions favor
able there may be no loss, but when there is q
tendency to rot, the fruit put up in this way
breaks right down. Y GU will remember that alarge
portion OF the arrivals during the third week in
December of this season were in bad order, more
or less, rot | did not open single lot that
showed started 'Wasty' where it not per-
fectly plain that the rough handling,
before shipment, careless sorting or poor pack
ing"
''There is a good deal of kicking about the way
fruit is treated route, but, l tell you, l am
convinced that the loss from rough treatment
and bad stowage route compared with the
JOSS from the above causes is O mere bagatelle,
not IN ore than One-tenth OF one per cent"
FLORIDA oranges well put up will not rot in
the time required to reach the markets of the
East and West; no, not even the tender est, low
hammock fruit i'll the lost unfavorable weather.
And when it does rot the shipper can take it for
granted that the fault is in his method OF gather
ing and packing"
"You evidently think am laying undue stress
upon handling, sorting and packing, but 1
house full OF oranges from hundred different
shippers; we pass rapidly along, take a peep
under the cover of q box in each lot, you see,
with the exception of the three lots hav pointed
out, there is not full box in the house-all slack
filled, every one of them The greatest loss from
this slack pack is not the deprecated value by
reason OF the package lacking its complement of
about in the boxes. If there is any chance to de
velOp rot this will do it,
Mote that large lot there. 1t was put
up by an institution which hundrt DIS of growers
swear by, yet you see, it is loosely wrapped and