258 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



four in depth upon an open inclined plane, made of laths or strips, admit- 

 ting immediate drainage, and dashing cold water upon them several times 

 in quick succession, so as to wet and cool the entire surface. This, of 

 course, is done in the shade, and the fruit, when dry, is transferred to the 

 cellar. I am somewhat skeptical as to the utility of the watering process; 

 but as I have eaten delicious Jonathans tlie last of April, which had been 

 treated in this way, am not entirely incredulous. 



The different practices of orchardists for keeping apples in a fresh 

 state for winter or spring use, or for market, have already been given in 

 the reports of the State Horticultural Society. The old practice of plac- 

 ing them upon shelves, only two or three in depth, so they would have 

 plenty of air, still has its advocates, though their number is growing less 

 year by year, as the success of other modes becomes known ; and the pre- 

 vailing practice of our most successful growers now is to bai-rel up tightly 

 in autumn, and keep in a dry, cool place, and as near the freezing point 

 as may be without allowing the fruit to freeze. 



Apples kept in barrels through the winter should be repacked imme- 

 diately before sending to market in spring. 



Of the various modes of preparing fruit for the table — although com- 

 ing within the scope of the topic assigned this committee — it is not profit- 

 able to write ; and I will confine myself to the modes of conservation 

 preparatory to these. 



Drying or Dessicating JFridt. — The introduction, within a few years, 

 of improved machines for rapidly paring, coring and slicing apples, and 

 the many devices for drying fruit, have so far cheapened the process and 

 improved the quality of the ])roduct, that this mode of conservation has 

 come to be one most important, especially for those who have a surplus of 

 summer and autumn fruit not marketable at remunerating prices. For 

 extensive operations there are a large number of machines for this pur- 

 pose — of which the "Alden" is the type — which are well known, and 

 which produce dried fruit of a quality so far superior to that dried in the 

 old way (by spreading in the sun) that it would hardly be recognized as 

 the same species or variety of fruit. There are also many devices, well 

 adapted to the use of the ordinary farmer or professional fruit-grower, 

 in prei)aring fruit for their own use and for market. All these, I think, 

 operate upon the one principle of moVing the fruit — spread in thin slices 



The notion that, before being closely packed or stored, the fruit must be allowed 

 to "go through a sweat," is abandoned, as a fallacy, by many of our most intelligent 

 fruit-growers; and apples intended for winter or spring market are tightly barreled in 

 the orchard, as picked. It is known that apples ''sweat" in the same manner and for 

 the same cause that a pitcher of cold water sweats when surrounded by a damp atmos- 

 ])here warmer than itself; hence, if the damp air is excluded there will be no sweating. 

 The intelligent housewife, who has a cool, dry cellar, knows that apples brought up 

 from it into the damp, warm atmosphere of the kitchen, will soon become covered with 

 moisture, from the condensation of the warm vapors of the room upon their cool, >mooth 

 surfaces. This condensation is the swcahtr^ of apples, so called. Let no one fear the 

 decay of his apples from this cause, unless he confines them closely, thus j)revenling the 

 evaporation of this moisture while they are thus covered with it. 



