108 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



Mr. Morrill: That would break the crystal, of course, if it broke the- 

 connection between the crystal and the tissues. 



Prof. Waite: Well, the mere changing of position, perhaps, of a few 

 molecules, is one thing we could see with a microscope. They could not be 

 seen with the naked eye, in an apple that thawed out, but they could be 

 seen microscopically, certainly. 



Mr. Reid: I understood you to say that the breaking of the cellular 

 tissue in any wa}' would certainly start decay. My question was, would, 

 not the breaking of the cnstals alone be sufficient? 



Prof. AVaite: Yes, the crystals we are talking about now are inter- 

 cellular crystals. They are small. Of course, the size of an apple cell, 

 one single cell, may just barely be seen on a black surface with the naked, 

 eye, and these crystals are within that cell. Necessarily, if you have 

 crystals form rapidly enough to force the cells apart and rupture them, 

 that never could be repaired. It is hopeless; they never could recover. 

 But those crystals are so firm that they could not be broken by any such, 

 movement. I do not think the}' could be broken by that. 



Prof. Slayton: When we remember that these cells are as small as one 

 two-hundredth of an inch in diameter; that each cell has a skin on eacha 

 side of it, besides its contents, how delicate must the cell wall be! When 

 the inside of the cell, the watery part, crystalizes and forms crystals with, 

 the sharp angle of sixtv degrees, could not thev easilv lacerate that very 

 thin cell wall? 



Prof. Waite: Well, the cell wall is the toughest and hardest portion 

 of the whole structure. AVe are hardly prepared to go into the construc- 

 tion of a cell now, but it seems to be inevitable. The fact is, doubtless,, 

 that the crystals form at the point where they can form most easily. The 

 p(»int of least resistance, I think, would be in the vesicles or in the cell-sac. 

 The cell consists of three things — a sac like a bladder, a lining of proto- 

 plasm (a gelatinous, living substance — the cell wall being merely a 

 skeleton of course), and then a nucleus, a more or less strong fibrous proto- 

 plasm reaching from that nucleus to the living lining of the cell wall,, 

 all the rest of the cell being occupied by the cell-sac, containing sugar 

 and nearly pure water, and in that watery portion the crystals would form. 



Prof. Tracy: In talking of these people out in Westfield, Connecticut,, 

 where they have grown onions so long, I noticed that all the buildings 

 were built substantiallv. Thev usually have a stone basement. I referred 

 to it, an(i I was told that thev built them solidlv because thev wished tO' 

 store onions in them, and that they could not store onions in a shaky 

 building. Their experience had taught them the importance of keeping 

 the onions quiet. We last year stoied two or three hundred bushels in 

 w^hat we call our " dry house." It is a building built wath a double wall, 

 with paper between it, a fairly substantial building. The onions were 

 stored in the upper story, and when they were taken out there was a 

 marked difference between them and those in our onion-house. The,y did' 

 not keep nearly so well. I had quite a discussion with the man who had 

 charge of the ground. My theory was that the reason they did not keep so 

 well was because of the slight movement which a frame building has 

 when exposed to the wind, as compared with the onion-house, where the 

 onions rested on the ground and had no connection with the exterior wall. 

 I thought that point of not having any connection with the exterior wall 

 a most im])oi(ant element, and the man who had charge of the matter and! 



