The Ocala banner., 1922-06-02

/ Confronted with this problem OF
heat control Mr.. Ahlburg spent sew
eral months in an attempt to syn
chroniZe the heat of his branding wire
with the temperature of the fruit to
be branded
In 1914 he went to Alaska. There
he had a silversmith make him a
small branding apparatus He prac-
ticed heat control still using the heat
from the electric light sockets and
became so expert that he could make
| very distinct white mark on the ap-
pie without injuring it.
Coming out of Alaska in the fall of
1914 Mr.. Ahlburg went to the famous
Rogue River apple section in the
northwest to continue his expert
ments. There he became associated
with c. L. Hobart and interested Ho-
bart in his branding proposition. The
.wo went to the San Francisco Expo
sition and there marked apples in the
fruit exhibit of Montana. K. L. Smith,
a mechanic, became associated with
them and they began the building of
a machine for branding. This was
the first of many models tried. Sew
enteen machines in all were built
before the one now in use was devel-
oped One machine was used only
twenty-four hours and then junked be-
cause of the weaknesses it developed.
Just couple of years ago Ahlburg
and his associates assembled all the
fruit branding machines they made
in the course of years and took an
inventory before consigning the ap-
paratus to the junk man. They had
spent $4,000 on this pile Of junk.
but by a process of evolution they
had steadily improved their machine
and had weeded out weaknesses until
they had developed type of machine
that branded 500 oranges minute
and that required only few minutes
attention each day by an unskillful
person.
Early in 1915 Ahlburg secured the
services of White & Prost, San Fran
cisco patent attorneys, and took out
patents on the marking process. They
were fortunate in enlisting the active
interest of William X. White, one Of
the patent attorneys. Mr.. White not
only served him as an attorney but
as a friend and financial backer. A
model machine was built and White
and Prost entered applications for
patent. In September, 1915, a basis
process patent was granted and pat
ent rights were also secured on svari-
Gus machines.
Commercial Success Proved.
The Electric Fruit Marking Com
pany was then incorporated. This
corporation still controls the electric
fruit marking machine.
The inventor now felt in a position
10 go before the commercial growers
Of fruit. Executives of the California
Fruit Growers Exchange had become
interested in the machine and opened
negotiations to have the machine
tried out in packing houses OF the
exchange. These negotiations dragged
ont for more than year The first
real marking of fruit for a commercial
grower was done by Ahlburg and his
associates in August, 1916. when they
took a machine TO Mcpherson Heights
in California to brand the William
Tell trademark on oranges c. w.
post. manager of the packing house
at Mcpherson Heights, had been
stamping his brand on oranges with
a rubber stamp and ink. The inyen-
tors used a machine operated by foot
power and by hand. Pots of ink We're
used. the branding dies being auto
matically dipped in these, The in
yentors had not yet solved the prob
lem of ink control. but they did
highly satisfactory job branding the
oranges. proving that even though
their apparatus was in need of refine
ment II was commercially practicable.
The problem of ink control proved al
most as hard a one to solve as heat
control. The inventors found it diff
cult to get an ink that would stay on
the fruit. Forty or fifty kinds of ink
were tried-all unsuccessful. The ink
would carbonize from ths heat or the
die and would clog I'D the dies. Ahl-