104 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



want that part of the business done in as even a manner as possible. 

 Varieties like the Northern Spy require very careful treatment ; it 

 should never be poured from the basket for in doing so the stem of 

 one apple will break the skin of another and that apple is bound to 

 decay in a very short time. Our practice with Baldwins is to have 

 a cart set near the trees into which the apples are carefully turned 

 from the baskets, and then before storing are carefully sorted. 

 There is a question and a serious one in regard to the advisability 

 of storing apples at all, but it seems to me that the most of us here 

 in Maine should hold our winter fruit into the winter months. A 

 few can sell, perhaps, in the fall directly from the orchard and get 

 as much, counting the extra cost of handling and the shrinkage, as 

 others to store them, but the question would be different if every 

 fruit grower should force his stock upon the market at the same 

 time ; therefore it would appear to be necessary' for a large majorit}- 

 of our fruit growers to provide a proper place for storing their fruit, 

 giving a man a much longer time in which to find a market, and not 

 being obliged to take the first offer that is made. Where a person 

 has large quantities of fruit it is probably best to build a regular 

 fruit cellar, in that way relieving the house cellar of one of its many 

 duties. In the first place, apples can be kept to advantage at a 

 lower temperature than potatoes, and having ventilation enough to 

 keep the cellar at thirty degrees above zero would keep the rooms 

 above uncomfortably cold, and as a rule a special fruit cellar can 

 by a little planning be made much more convenient to get the fruit 

 both in and out than is usual with the house cellar, and as time 

 goes on and the march of improvement reaches one after another 

 each house will be furnished with its furnace, thus heating the 

 common cellar to such a degree as to be unfit for the storage of 

 apples, but for the pre«ent the majority of farmers have no other 

 place than the house cellar, and it would seem best that the apple 

 bin should be put in that corner that can best be kept the coolest 

 and darkest, taking care that it does not get below thirty degrees 

 above zero. The best cellar for the purpose is a very moist one, 

 and in such a cellar my opinion is that there is little danger of 

 putting too many in one bin. And the Baldwin may be kept in 

 this way until April and even into Ma}-, and usually at an ad- 

 vantage, as by that time the bulk of the apple crop has been con- 

 sumed or has gone to decay, leaving the market short of good, 

 bright fruit. Not that I think it advisable for every orchardist to 



