227. We append to this Report the following separate Reports:

Apple Report.

Citrus Fruit Report.

"Soft" Fruit Report.

Dried (Vine) Fruit Report.

Dried (Tree) Fruit Report.

Bottled and Canned Fruit Report.

Fruit Pulp, Jam, and Crystallised Fruit Report.

Nut Report.

Banana Report.

228. During the greater part of our investigations into fruit and at the date of signature of this Report our colleagues Sir Mark Sheldon and Sir Francis Newton were absent from England.

229. Finally we desire again to place on record our thanks and indebtedness to our Secretary, Mr. Herbert Broadley, who has performed all the duties of his office with admirable efficiency and despatch.

APPENDIX I.

CONSOLIDATED HANDLING CHARGES.

The following are typical instances of commissions and handling charges on boxes and barrels of apples at important distributing centres in the United Kingdom:

GLASGOW.

Commission-3 per cent. to 5 per cent.

Handling Charges-Boxes: Consolidated Rate, 9d. per box.

Barrels:

1s. 5d. per barrel.

Commission-3 per cent. to 5 per cent.

Handling Charges--Boxes: Consolidated Rate, 11d. per box.

1s. 5d. per barrel.

Commission-3 per cent. to 5 per cent.

Handling Charges-Boxes: Consolidated Rate, 11d. per box.

Barrels :

1s. 5d. per barrel.

There is no quay rent within a free period of 72 hours after landing. After that time, a quay rent of .083d. per day for barrels, and ·013d. per day for boxes, is charged. Most of the apples are removed within the free period.

LONDON-COVENT GARDEN.

Commission-5 per cent. and 6 per cent.

Handling Charges-Boxes: Consolidated Rate

18. per box. 28. per barrel.

LONDON-MONUMENT MARKET.

Commission-2 per cent. to 6 per cent.
Handling Charges-Boxes: Consolidated Rate

Barrels

Analysis of Consolidated Rate.

1s. per box. 2s. per barrel.

APPENDIX II.

MEMORANDUM BY FRANKLIN KIDD, D.Sc., Low TEMPERATURE RESEARCH STATION, CAMBRIDGE, ON FRUIT RESEARCH.

Investigations up to the present have been mainly concerned with the apple as a type fruit, but we are now beginning to extend the field to include other fruits and vegetables, as for example, plums, pears, pineapples, oranges, bananas.

Storage Trials.

The good keeping quality in storage depends on a large number of factors, and we have been endeavouring to estimate the importance of these different factors. The outstanding results of these trials may be summarised as follows:

(1) There is an enormous difference in the keeping quality of fruits from different soils. This opens up a big and entirely unsolved problem as to why this is so. There are important practical aspects in that we may find it possible to control the keeping quality of fruit by modifying cultivation. Experiments along these lines are only in their infancy.

(2) Varieties of apples vary in their reaction to the temperature of storage. Some varieties cannot be successfully cold-stored at 32°-34° F.; others give better results at one temperature than at another. The interesting general principle has emerged that apples are like bananas, and probably oranges, in that there is an optimum temperature for storage which is not always the lowest possible, avoiding freezing. When apples are stored below their optimum temperature the result is usually internal breakdown.

(3) Seasonal effects on the keeping qualities of fruits are marked, but we have not gone far enough at present to unravel cause and effect.

(4) The composition of the atmosphere has been found to have a marked influence on the preservation of fruits in storage. Complete elimination of oxygen is usually harmful, at any rate in the case of the apple, but a reduction of the amount of oxygen normally present and an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide present has a beneficial effect on the keeping quality, ripening of the fruit being retarded under these conditions. This discovery is obviously of practical significance. Successful semi-commercial storage trials have been carried out with apples in artificial atmospheres containing less oxygen and more carbon dioxide than is normal, the atmosphere composition being controlled by regulating ventilation. As the study of the effect of atmospheres of different composition upon fruit and vegetables is an entirely unexplored field, unexpected results are continually cropping up, and the attempt to utilise artificial atmospheres for the preservation of fruit on a large scale must proceed with caution and be accompanied by thorough scientific investigation. There is still a large amount of work to be done in studying the effects of artificial atmospheres on fruits and vegetables on the one hand, and on the other in working out the most economical means of making gas-tight storage chambers and regulating the atmosphere composition in them. Ships' holds are the most promising lines of development for any system of atmosphere control in storage as, being made of metal, they are capable of being more or less gas-tight, while land storage buildings are not.

(5) Another line of investigation which is in progress bears on the relative efficiency of various types of ordinary storage which are advocated; that is to say, storage without refrigeration. Apples from one orchard are being stored in a number of different commercial stores all over the country. So far results to hand indicate that clamping or pitting the apples for storage is bad; other types of

storage vary in efficiency for reasons which are not yet clear, but are greatly inferior to cold storage or the methods we are developing of storage in artificial atmospheres of a composition controlled by regulating the ventilation.

(6) The stage has now been reached when the storage trial investigations would be more profitable if systematically developed in fruit growing districts, at out-stations devoted entirely to this work and less elaborately equipped than is the Low Temperature Research Station at Cambridge.

(7) The question of various types of wrappers is under continuak study. So far the only commercial wrapper of outstanding merit. has been the oiled wrapper for apples.

(8) Cold storage trials with other fruits and various vegetables, both home-grown and imported, are now being started.

Field Investigations.

Field investigations have been chiefly concerned with the problem of how to get quick cooling and to maintain a uniform temperature throughout a large bulk of fruit. The problem is being tackled by carefully mapping temperature distribution in a number of large land stores and ships holds under different systems of refrigeration and dunnage. The main outcome of these studies to date is, firstly, the very wide range of temperature variation which occurs in the same store at the same time; secondly, the emphasis to be laid on cooling from above and on providing vertical air channels through the mass of the fruit, and lastly the emphasis to be laid on the heat production of the fruit itself, a fact which has been overlooked in the past. More work along these lines is contemplated. The question of uniform temperatures throughout cargoes is one of the first importance.

Field investigations have also been concerned with the problem of the causation and extent of accidental ventilation or leakage of air into and out of ships' holds carrying fruit. Practical application of knowledge thus obtained is important in relation to the contamination of butter, eggs, &c., with odours of fruits stored in neighbouring chambers. Any information with regard to the gas-tightness of chambers will also be useful in the event of atmospheres of artificial composition being used in ships' holds.

Covent Garden Out-Station Laboratory.

Work has just been started at a small laboratory situated in the precincts of Covent Garden Market, London. The object in the first place is to make a thorough scientific survey of the condition of fruit and vegetables passing through the market, and to arrive at some definite conclusion with regard to the causes of depreciation and wastage. It is hoped that this laboratory will be able to work in close co-operation with Overseas producers and shipping companies, especially in relation to the examination of trial shipments.

Ocean Transport Experiments and Investigations.

It is desirable that the policy initiated in the Australian expedition of investigations carried out on board ship with the co-operation of the shipping companies in the matter of the ocean transport of fruit should be continued, and that the range of such investigations should be extended. There are two things to be done: (1) The observation of conditions in holds as they actually obtain during carriage as at present practised, in order to improve practice and compare the performance of different systems in controlling conditions of temperature and atmosphere; (2) The conduct of small scale trial shipments under close observation and under more than one set of conditions at the same time so as to compare results.