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BRANDING ORANGES
By H. C. KEGLEY
E L E C T R I C I T Y has come to the
rescue of Southern California
orange growers; it will be used
in protecting their fruit in tbe
markets of the world. Cooperative
growers in the California Fruit
(irowers Exchange have been spending
four hundred thousand dollars per year
to popularize their famous Sunkist brand
of oranges, and now they are going to
spend thousands to protect the brand.
An Alaskan, whose name is Ahlberg,
has invented an electric branding machine
which has been tried out experimentally
for the past two years. The
California Fruit Growers Exchange has
taken an option on the device for the
purchase of the United States and Canadian
rights, and for the right to use it
exclusively upon the fruit that they ship
to England and Australia. In case the
Exchange decides to use the machine it
is probable that five hundred will be
placed in operation this year.
The branding machine is simply
a large wheel with eighteen
spokes. At the end of each
spoke is a foot which carries a
delicate die which bears the word
"Sunkist" upon its face. This
die is heated by electricity to a
degree of temperature
which, when the die is
pressed down upon
the cheek of an
orange, causes the letters
to be pressed into
the skin of the fruit.
There is a certain
amount of wa.x in the
skin of an orange,
and the heat from the die melts the wax
as the die is pressed against the orange.
The wax runs into the imprint of the
die, forming a hard base upon the surface
of which the indelible ink on the
face of the die is left as the die is with­
drawn. This makes a pleasant-appearing
and permanent imprint.
The ink is placed upon the dies automatically
as the big wheel rolls around.
Each die passes under an ink container
The Electric Orange Branding
Machine and Three Samples of Its
Work
which drops upon
its face a drop
of the ink. The
die rolls under a
ribbon which distributes
the ink
over its face, and
then it travels on
to the next orange. The branding wheel
makes twenty revolutions a minute and
brands two boxes of fruit in that time.
It is capable of turning out approximately
two carloads of fruit in a working:
day.
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