----- Original Message -----
From: "feddersenmark" <feddersenmark@yahoo.com>
To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, January 4, 2010 11:23:13 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Barrel Crates - How Common Were These?

In addition to working for DuPont in Clinton, Iowa, my father ran a one man insurance agency out of a desk in our dining room for Union Insurance Co. of Lincoln, Nebraska. Every summer for several years in the early 50's, the president of the company would send a gift of about a dozen cantaloupe, presumedly grown near Lincoln, boxed in a crate made of slats about 5" x 1/4" nailed to a 3/4" x whatever top and bottom and re-enforced with wire. They were delivered to our door by the REA and arrived in good condition. I don't know how they were routed from Lincoln to Clinton, but I assume (I know) it was via passenger train (UP/C&NW) in an express car. I always looked forward to their arrival as they were the best. Mark Feddersen




--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, "lnbill" <fgexbill@...> wrote:

Although the caption characterizes these as barrels, they are really more like cylindrical crates with slates to promote contact with cool air. I have accumulated several resources related to various forms of shipping containers for produce related to researching the FGE/WFE/BRE companies. What most of us would call and recognize as barrels were used to ship potatoes and apples. Most citrus was shipped in rectangular crates which one publication called simply "Orange and Grapefruit boxes."

Many crops required specifically designed shipping containers while potatoes, for example was also loaded in bulk into reefers and in paper or burlap bags. Peaches moved in specially designed baskets while asparagus were shipped in a box that was shaped like a trapezoid the given vegetables  shape once they were bundled and tied together.

Attendees at Cocoa Beach will get a little taste of containers in my presentation there (shameless self-promotion).

Bill Welch

--- In STMFC@yahoogroups.com, Nolan Hinshaw <cearnog@> wrote:

On Jan 3, 2010, at 12:15 PM, Bob C wrote:

This image is from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library's  
Burgert Brothers Photographic Archives.  The caption reads, "Barrel  
crates of Pinellas County citrus fruit loaded in boxcar for  
shipment: Elfers, Fla. The date is 1931.  (I believe the "boxcar"  
is actually a reefer.)

http://digital.hcplc.org/burgert/archive09/8263.jpg

I have never seen barrel crates before.  Were these very common?

Idunno, but I really appreciated an image illustrating hexagonal
closest packing of circles. Meanwhile the imagination runs rampant
with possibilities for a project I'm working on.
--
Nolan Hinshaw, native Californian since 1944
"[Vista is] about as stable as a one-legged elephant on a skateboard"
C. Daniels

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