Failed Experimental Fruit Shipment
With the American Line struggling to turn a profit in the wake of the 1873 financial panic, the company decided to experiment with some novel exports. The first such experiment involved a large shipment of peaches onboard Ohio.
Delaware fruit growers had experienced a bumper year in 1875, and a glut of peaches on the local market had depressed the price correspondingly. Seeking to take advantage of the situation, the ASC's management placed advertisements offering to ship the surplus fruit to the United Kingdom in specially ventilated compartments on Ohio. The ASC organized a train to pick up the fruit, and the response was overwhelming, with over 4,500 baskets of peaches delivered. Ohio sailed for Liverpool with its cargo of peaches in late August.
The ASC had hoped to keep the fruit fresh during the transatlantic crossing by installing steam powered blowers to circulate an air current over the peaches through several tons of ice, but the ice was soon melted by heat from the ship's boilers and the sunny weather. By the time the ship reached Liverpool, the shipment of peaches had completely decomposed and was utterly worthless.
Undeterred by this failure, the ASC next attempted a shipment of fresh meat on board Illinois, utilizing much the same technique. This time, the ice held out, and the meat arrived in Liverpool in excellent condition. A second shipment of meat was subsequently made; however, reliable shipments of fresh meat across the Atlantic would have to wait for the invention of refrigeration twenty years later.
Read more about this topic: SS Ohio (1872), Service History, 1870s
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