STATE POMOI.OGICAL SOCIETY. 



and I desire to present a few of the practical results that have 

 been emphasized by our investigations. 



INFLUENCE OF TEMPERATURE ON THE KEEPING QUALITY OF 



THE FRUIT, 



A fruit is a hving organism in which the life processes go 

 forward more slowly in low temperatures. When the fruit 

 naturally reaches the end of its life, it dies from old age. It 

 may be killed prematurely by rots which lodge on the fruit 

 before it is picked or sometime afterward. A cold temperature 

 is designed to arrest the ripening processes and thereby to pro- 





A VERMONT APPLE STORAGE HOUSE. 

 From P^of. F. A. Waugh's "Fruit Harvesting, Storing, 

 Marketing," by courtesy of the Orange Judd Company, 

 New York. 



long its life history. It is designed also to check the develop- 

 ment of the diseases with which the fruit is affected, but it can- 

 not prevent the ripening of the fruit nor the slow growth of 

 some of the diseases. The lower the temperature in which the 

 fruit may be safely stored, the more nearly are the ripening 

 processes stopped. In the investigations of the department, 

 apples have been stored in temperatures ranging from 31 to 36° 

 and it has been found that a temperature of 31 to 32° is more 

 efficient in checking ripening than a higher temperature, and 

 that the quality of the fruit and its other characteristics are in 



