STATK HORTICULTURAI, SOCIETV^ 1(')7 



Third. We may surround our fruit witli the circuriistances of low 

 temperature, darkness, and a confined atmosphere, and then decay must 

 be slow, for so soon as any oxygen is taken from that air, there is left an 

 excess of nitrogen which of all gases is most unfavorable to decay, es- 

 pecially if drv and unaffected by electric passages. 



But where oxygen is absorbed, its place is supplied by carbonic acid 

 excreted ; and carbonic acid does not feed decay, any more than it will 

 feed flame, or suj)port resjjiration. 



Here then seems to be a set of conditions which we may ap])ly at 

 so slight expense that our process may be economical, and the results 

 reached still be of great use. 



We can readily confine fruit in the dark where it is cool. But may 

 we not do more .^ .Suppose we supply the atmosphere surrounding our 

 fruit with a substance hungry for oxygen, or with another substance both 

 hungry for oxygen and exerting a destructive influence upon the fungoid 

 growths. It seems as though, if we could find such substances cheap 

 and plenty, our fruit m'lght be cheaply and easily preserved long beyond 

 its usual time. 



Chief among the substances which have a tendency to retard decay 

 is earth, — mother earth. The soil is, either wet or dry, an absorber of 

 oxygen, especially so when it holds certain salts of iron ; and the accounts 

 we see, together with experience, teach that many substances are pre- 

 served in earth where they would soon decay out of it. But ordinary 

 earth holds enough organic matter to give a good foothold to fungoid 

 growths whenever moisture and heat enough arc present. So it would 

 seem that pulverized and dried subsoil would better serve our purpose, 

 were it not that the very presence of the organic matter helps make the 

 top soil an absorber of oxygen. 



We all remember the buried apples of our youth, how well they 

 kept, and how mouldy they tasted. Can we not keep them as well, and 

 avoid the mould '' 



I believe we can, and that it will be done by the aid of dried earth 

 and a salt of iron, or some similar body which will put a veto upon the 

 fungi and still take up oxygen so that the air shall be able to spare none 

 to assist decay. How strange it is that substances that are oxydi/;ing 

 take up flavors and perfumes so rapidly ! A ripening apple, in an at- 

 mosphere smelling strongly of tobacco, in six hours will actually taste of 

 tobacco a half-inch under the skin. Cream will greedily suck up every 

 perfume presented, as will butter, and both are taking up oxygen. Per- 

 fumes and flavors really seem to accompany the atoms of oxygen. Who 

 knows but that they do.'' 1 had hoped when appointed upon your com- 

 mittee to be able to institute a series of experiments to gain light upon 

 this branch of my subject, liut unfavorable circumstances (the same 

 which generally deter private experimenters in pursuit of knowledge) 

 prevented it ; and as the knowledge was as yet undeveloped, 1 had no 

 place to go to get that which would adequately supply my own deficiency. 

 It may be that the German experiment stations might have given light 



