4 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



My house is built in the side of a hill descending to the northeast, ^4x42 

 feet, and two and a half stories high. The lower story is built of stone, the 

 walls of which are two feet in thickness, and where exposed to the nortli they 

 are lined with four-inch brick walls. Tlie slut lloor, two feet above ground, is 

 supported by stone piers. The upper story and a half is built of wood, triple 

 walls fifteen inches in thickness, ten inches of which is filled with saw-dust. 

 There is an air space of two inches next to the inner ceiling on every side of 

 the room. The floor is made of slats similar to the one below. The attic or 

 third story floor is covered with sawdust two feet in thickness, and is used for 

 storing ladders and various horticultural implements. 



The doors are all double, the outer swinging out and the inner swinging in. 

 The windows are provided with close shutters. There is also a frame-work iu 

 the center extending from the stone piers in basement to the third floor, for 

 support. This brings us to the most important part of the house, the ventila- 

 tion, which is by means of twenty ten-inch sewer tile laid in the walls directly 

 beneath each floor, for the purpose of admitting cold air; these have close 

 fitting lids of sheet-iron, which can be removed at pleasure. There is also a 

 ventilating pipe of sheet-iron two feet in diameter, in the center, extending 

 from an opening in the third floor, through tlie attic and roof and ten feet 

 above, with a valve which can be opened and closed at will. Upon this pipe is 

 a hood to exclude storms. 



I have 1,000-bushel crates, which are filled with fruit and piled one upon 

 the other like bricks in a wall, to form bins along the aisles. The balance of 

 the fruit is deposited in the bins in bulk on both upper and lower floors, until 

 the house is filled. There should bo a thermometer hanging in each fruit 

 room, also one on the outside. Before cold weather sets in the space between 

 the double doors, also the space between the windows and shutters should be 

 filled with sawdust to exclude frost and light, the only entrance in winter be- 

 ing througli a south door, protected by an ante-room, which is not packed like 

 the other rooms. 



In working the house the attendant should be actuated principally by the 

 indications of the thermometer; his judgment will soon, however, decide, upon 

 entering the house and examining the condition of the fruit, what course to 

 pursue. To illustrate : "Were we to enter our fruit room on a fine winter day, 

 when the outside temperature indicates 20° below freezing, while the thermom- 

 eter indoors indicated 10° above, or a dilterence of 30°, if you desired to keep 

 the room as near as possible to 35°, you would at once open the valve in the 

 ventilating pipe for the escape of the warm air in the upper part of the room, 

 and at the same time open all the flues at the base of the building to admit 

 cold air to fill its place. Thus, ia a few hours, you would reduce the tempera- 

 ture to the point desired, when the flues should all be closed. On the contrary, 

 should you find the fruit room cooler than the mean temperature outside you 

 "would let it remain closed for the present and await a more favorable opportu- 

 nity, the object in view being to hold the cold air inside, when it is warmer 

 outside. When very cold outside admit just enough to obtain the desired tem- 

 perature, and no more. You will be very agreeably surprised to learn how easy 

 a matter it will be to keep such a room for months within a very few degrees 

 of any desirable temperature without any artificial means. 



On referring to my memoranda 1 find that one year ago we were able to hold 

 my house for five months within 3° of freezing; also, when the atmospheric 

 temperature rapidly changed, 00° in twenty-four hours, the change in the 



