500 HOARD OF AOmCULTURE. 



was clahiiod years agu that if you put it iu cold storage it would not 

 keep any length of time after you took it out. I will give you some of 

 my experience, if I may, in regard to lliat. Winter before last I had 

 the Illinois State Exhibit at the Charleston Exposition, and I shipped a 

 car of apples of my own packing to Charleston, intending to go there and 

 try if I could market it after I arrived there myself. The car of apples 

 came in and I went to a prospective buyer and took him down to 

 the car, and opened up one or two barrels to show him. Now, these 

 apples were picked directlj^ from the tree and had never touched the 

 ground, but were put into the barrels and taken from the orchard and 

 put immediately into storage. . An apple that is picked directly from the 

 limb, even though the weather may be very warm, is cool, and it re- 

 tains that condition, and we had treated these in that manner and shipped 

 it in an iced car to Charleston. The merchant, when we opened the first 

 barrel, noticed that there was a peculiar color on the apple— that is to 

 say, the natural bloom was still on the apple; it had not been handled 

 and it retained its natin-al bloom, and when he rubbed the apple it 

 showed a bright luster. He had not been accustomed to anything like 

 that, and he asked me whether or not I had put anything on them to 

 preserve them. I said I had not, and he observed that it had the ap- 

 pearance of having something on it, and I informed him that that was 

 the natural bloom of the apple, and that it had never touched the ground; 

 it had not gone through the sweat and been given the appearance of 

 being thrown in the river before it was shipped. He had not an apple 

 in his house that had a particle of luster on it; they looked like they had 

 been lying around for weeks; so in this case he saw the peculiarity about 

 the apple, and I had no trouble in selling them to him for about seventy- 

 five cents a barrel more than he was paying for anything else. He said, 

 however, that he did not think they would keep in that climate; that the 

 salt air would injure, and that being exposed to the salt air in about 

 thirty-six hours they would begin to rot. I told him that I expected to be 

 represented in the exhibit the first of June and that I had apples there 

 that I expected to maintain it with, and I thought they would keep. T 

 offered to keep a barrel of apples there, not to show over ten per cent, 

 decay in two weeks, if he would double the price of his purchase money, 

 and if they failed to bear me out, he could have them for nothing. He 

 didn't take me np on that, but I saw him afterwards, and he said those 

 apples did not keep worth a cent— he sold them out in four days. I saw 

 them afterwards on the fruit stands along the streets, and I could tell 

 the difference between them and other apples in the luster, the fresh- 

 ness and solidity. I have said more on that subject than I probably 

 ought, but that is very important, I think. I noticed a good many young 

 orchards as I cam-^ along on the train, and if these people are going to 

 pick for the market or cold storage, it is a fact that it pays to be careful 

 about the picking, and it pays to put them up in attractive packages. 



