SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 343 



KEEPING WINTER APPLES. 



A writer in the Rural New Yorker says : That water is not injurious to the 

 keeping of apples, even when actually in contact with them, is shown by the 

 fact that they keep perfectly well on the ground under leaves all winter. A 

 friend of mine living in Montreal says that seeing some very fine Fameuses ex- 

 posed for sale in that city, he inquired how they were kept. He learned that 

 they were part of the cargo of a canal boat which had sunk in the canal and 

 was frozen in before it could be raised. When this was effected in the spring, 

 it was found that the cargo of apples, which would not have kept much longer 

 than January in the air, had been preserved perfectly in water. An old 

 custom of burying apples in the ground, the same as roots, for winter storage, 

 also demonstrates that moisture in contact with apples does not necessarily 

 cause rotting. In Russia I understand that apples are preserved in tight bar- 

 rels with water, in the way practiced in this country with cranberries. On the 

 other hand, apples keep perfectly in dry cellars, as many fruit-growers can tes- 

 tify. What then is the essential requisite for the safe winter keeping of this 

 fruit? Simply, I believe, the preservation of a low uniform temperature, as 

 near the freezing point of water as possible. This can be maintained in dry 

 cellars, but much more easily and perfectly, I think, in wet ones. The pres- 

 ence of water has a controlling power over the variations of temperature near 

 the freezing point, as all know who have had to keep water in a cold cellar to 

 keep it from freezing. The moisture does no harm to the apples. 



SHEEP IN THE ORCHARD. 



A correspondent of the Vermont Journal gives the following interesting ex- 

 perience in keeping sheep in an apple orchard : 



My apple orchard covers thirty-two acres of ground, and, in addition to mak- 

 ing it a run for some thirty hogs, I have, during the past two years, kept from 

 150 to 200 sheep and lambs in it during the summer. Of course that amount 

 of land, if it was in good seeding and free from trees, would not pasture so 

 much stock, but in addition to the pasture I feed enough grain and wheat bran 

 to keep them in such condition that the lambs shall be large enough to wean in 

 July, and the sheep sufficiently thrifty to accept the buck after weaning the 

 lambs, and thus drop their next lambs for early winter feeding next winter. 



This, I find, costs me less than to hire the same number pastured by the 

 week, and being crowded they eat every spear of grass, every weed and green 

 thing close down, and eat every fallen apple as soon as dropped ; for the latter 

 purpose I find sheep much better than hogs, for while the hogs sleep so soundly 

 as not to hear an apple drop if only a few feet away, a sheep never sleeps, so 

 that it is on hand for every apple as soon as it touches the ground. 



I let them run here until time to gather winter fruit, and although they will 

 eat a few apples and a few twigs from the ends of the lower limbs, as they 

 bend down with the load of fruit, I find my fruit each year growing fairer, 

 with less and less wormy apples, and my trees, manured with the feeding of so 

 much grain, are looking remarkably healthy and are productive. To prevent 

 their gnawing the smaller trees, I wash the truuks with a solution of soap-suds, 

 whale-oil soap and sheep manure, about once each month, and besides I give 

 the sheep a constant and full supply of fresh water; this is very important, 



