256 REPORT OF STATE BOARD OF HORTICULTURE. 



having large orchards cannot depend on drying all by natural heat, and the 

 drier will have to be used, even if it is not so good for the nut." 



* ''In handling the nuts, I cure in dry houses by artificial heat, heating 

 sufficient to evaporate the water and set the oil of the nut. When this is 

 done the nuts will keep sweet for an indefinite time. I have kept them as 

 an experiment, in my storehouse, which is of concrete, for five years, and at 

 the end of that time they were as sweet as when first cured. With my 

 facilities, I cure them in eight hours. In preparing them for market, I have 

 a washing apparatus — invented by Mr. Cooper — which I use if the nuts are 

 discolored, as they often are by coming in contact with leaves or shucks when 

 there is dew or rain. Directly after washing they are thoroughly dried and 

 cured in the dry house. " 



CHESTNUT HARVESTING, PRESERVING, 

 AND PREPARATION. 



By Felix Gii^t^et. 



The question of how to presei-ve, handle, and pi'epare chestnuts, since the 

 cultivation of that nut seems to be increasing all over the Pacific Coast, is 

 both an important and interesting one to discuss. It has been often put to 

 me, as a propagator of that species of nut, and more recently by yourself. 

 as you have requested me to reply to the inquiry made by P. B. Schmidt, 

 one of your correspondents from Calistoga, reading as follows : 



Kindly inform me througli your valuable paper what is fjenerally done with Italian 

 ehestnuts, after pic-king, to prevent moulding? We have dried ours lightly in the oven, 

 the outside air no longer l>eing warm enough for drying them ; but this did not, prevent 

 the rotting of a great many. Is there any particular process gone through in Italy or 

 elsewhere whereby the nuts are prepared for the market? 



I will answer this inquiry as clearly as I can, giving you at the same time 

 some new facts on the subject of chestnut culture, treated h\ me heretofore 

 in the columns of the Pacific Rural Press. 



Harvesting of the nuts — The proper way of gathering chestnuts has much 

 to do with their preservation. The nuts generally ripen in October ; here, 

 in our mountains, mostly in the middle of October to the first of November. 

 When time of ripening approaches the burrs turn from green to yellow. 

 darker at the center, where they finally crack open, showing the brown 

 hulls of the nuts inside ; the nuts dropping to the ground when the burr is 

 fully open, or the wind shakes them down. The nuts, to insure their 

 thorough ripening, should be allowed to dropout of the burrs themselves 

 for two weeks or more, they being picked from the ground every morning 

 and put immediately to sweat ; after that time the remaining burrs and 

 nuts are knocked off the trees by striking the limbs with long, flexible, and 

 slender poles, the same as is done with walnuts. A little wooden mallet is 



* Hon. Russell Heath, essay before Eleventh State Fruitgrowers' Convention, 1889. 



