SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 435 



Packing Apples. — Hon. S. L. Fuller, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, 

 ■writes : 



What is the use of raising fruit and wasting it? When oranges and trop- 

 ical fruits are shipped to us well preserved, why cannot we get apples to the 

 nearest market fit to look at? Why will our farmers treat apples as they 

 would paving stones? It cannot be from "cussedness," for they are not 

 sinners above other men. It cannot be they have never been told better, 

 for they have ears to hear. Then why is it? The most charitable conclu- 

 sion is, it is from want of thought, and yet, one does not wish to believe 

 that farmers don't think. Why is it, then, that there is not one farmer in 

 a thousand — one in a thousand — who does not absolutely waste the fruit he 

 raises, so far as fitting it for market is concerned. You hear them say 

 4C apples aren't worth raising.'' I don't know of a person in this city who will 

 buy a barrel of apples to put in store for winter use. Why? Because they 

 are not gathered and packed so they will keep. 



It is a disgrace to the farming community. I hope your paper will preach 

 and preach and preach, till we try to save some of our apples. 



Preserving Apples Frozen. — We take the following notes from the 

 New York Sun, not because our own experience corroborates it but because, 

 if it is true, there is a great deal of importance to be attached to it : " If your 

 garret or loft is only cold enough, there isn't any reason in the world why 

 you shouldn't treat your friends with plump, full-flavored Ehode Island 

 Greenings, Baldwins, or any other choice apples, just as well next June as 

 you did last Christmas," said a Washington street commission merchant. 

 "I'll have last year's Baldwins, and I don't know but last year's Greenings, 

 as sound as a knot, in my house next summer, in the same dish with this 

 year's harvest apples ; yet nine out of ten people would have thought these 

 same apples were ruined two months ago, and would have treated them 

 accordingly. Why? Simply because they were frozen." 



"Doesn't the freezing of apples spoil them, then? " asked the reporter. 



" The general opinion is," replied the merchant, "that after an apple 

 freezes its value is gone ; but the fact is that just the contrary is the truth. 

 Let a barrel of apples freeze in the fall, and keep them frozen, or rather do 

 not disturb them, and in the spring they will be in the very condition they 

 were when taken from the tree. Baldwins, and, in fact, all favorite eating 

 apples, do not have their full flavor nor mellowness when first packed in the 

 fall ; they ripen in the barrel, and are at their best in January. After that they 

 begin to decay, and when March comes they are few and far between, those 

 that are left being the result of especial good care and attention. 



" If they are frozen in the fall, however, the ripening process is checked. 

 The vitality of the apple is simply suspended, and it only needs proper treat- 

 ment to restore it to its natural action. The trouble has always been that 

 when a barrel of apples was found to be frozen it was rolled off at once to a 

 warm place and subjected to a rapid thawing. Some people take the apples 

 out of the barrel and plunge them in cold water to draw the frost out. The 

 result is a flabby, flavorless fruit, really not worth the room it occupies, and 

 subject to speedy decay — all because of popular ignorance. A frozen apple 

 is one of the most sensitive things in the world. Touch your finger upon 

 it, and when the frost is thawed from the apple the spot touched will be a 

 mark of decay which spreads rapidly over the fruit. 



