50 STAiK POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



of mine who has what I call an ideal fruit house, in mv judg- 

 ment it is better than artificial cold storage — it is what I call 

 natural cold storage — round the walls about 14 inches he fills 

 with sawdust, overhead he has hay stored, not keeping any 

 stock at all, he has means of ventilation at the side of the barn 

 floor, and I think he has underneath the barn floor, he has saw- 

 dust space there, a space constructed so he can put sawdust there 

 but otherwise he has hay there. Now I would like to ask what 

 means you have in your cold storage house overhead to keep the 

 air from above ? 



Mr. Clark : Why this same wall that goes all about the 

 building, the ice box is boarded the same as the rest of the build- 

 ing; four boardings, three spaces, two of them air spaces, one, 

 the middle one, filled with charcoal dust. But round the ice box 

 the spaces are not quite as thick, one of them I think is not over 

 iy2 in., none of them over 2 in. Around the main part of the 

 house the space is four inches in each, that is, the air chambers 

 and the charcoal. The posts of this building are 7 ft. so that if 

 I store them in barrels 1 pile three barrels high on end, and store, 

 as I said, about a thousand barrels of apples. 



Q. I would like to know if the top barrel keeps as well as the 

 bottom barrel? 



Mr. CivARK : I have not seen any difference. 



Q. The ice probably takes care of that ? 



Mr. Clark : The ice will probably take care of that. Con- 

 stant circulation will keep it pretty even. 



Q. AVhy do you pile your barrels one on top of another ? 



Mr. Clark : I don't put one barrel just over the other. I 

 have them alternate. I don't fill the barrels full enough so that 

 the fruit is above, and you won't hit the fruit, that is, to bruise 

 it. In your lower row there will be one barrel more than in the 

 next row, that is, you lose one barrel, and in that way you can 

 pile your barrels up and leave an open space so that the air from 

 the house can go down into the barrel and the warm air come 



out. 



Q. I would ask about the expense of the building. 



Mr. Clark : Of course that will depend on the price of lum- 

 ber. When I built the house I had the carpenters put the house 

 up, and board it on the outside and make the doors, and we went 

 to work and finished it up ourselves, and this house cost me 



