No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 561 



We keep the Keiftei- pear sometimes at 30 degrees. You will un 

 del-stand that iu a room that is very close, and no circulation of air, 

 the freezing temperature of the air is about two degrees higher than 

 it i« out of doors. At first we kept apples at 38 to 40 degrees, as I 

 have said, and butter was kept at the same temperature. I mean 

 to say when artifical refrigeration came into existence. I do not 

 mean a room kept cool by ice and salt. At the present time butter 

 is kept from zero to five degrees below and eggs are kept at from 

 30 to 32 degrees. If you go in a restaurant in any large city and 

 order ham and eggs you usually get refrigerator eggs, and they 

 are much better than those eggs you buy in the stores. I had a 

 Bartlett pear here with me; that pear was kept at from 31) to 32 

 degrees. We wanted to see how cold we could keep that pear with- 

 out it being frosted. If you put frost into a Keiffer pear or Bartlett 

 pear, or any pear, you will ruin it. You can freeze an apple and 

 if you hold it at that temperature a certain time, take it out of the 

 refrigerator and place it at about 40 degrees, keep it there about 

 24 hours, that apple is not injured, apparently. It will not keep 

 as long as it would if it had not been frosted but it will not injure 

 it for a few days. 



I suppose I should not speak on any subject than apples, but as 

 you gentlemen have had some liberty on other things I will say a 

 word on the Keifter pear. The Keiffer pear, some 13 or 14 years 

 ago, when I came to Philadelphia, was condemned by nearly every 

 one that raised them, and the refrigerator men were equally opposed 

 to them, and thousands of trees went out of existence on account 

 of everybody giving the fruit a bad name. We had a few men store 

 their pears with the understanding that if they could not get out 

 with their freight we w^ould not charge them anything for storage. 

 At first we had them at 38 degrees, and when they came out they 

 came out with a black heart. We discovered that they were too 

 ripe when put in storage, were not put in storage early enough, and 

 after a while we run the temperature down to about 30 degrees 

 and found they would keep very well. We also discovered that 

 they w^ould shake the fruit from the trees and iu falling from the 

 trees would be slightly bruised, which would cause decay, therefore 

 hurting the Keiffer pear very materially as far as marketing them 

 was concerned. At the present time, however, I suppose we store 

 from thirty-five to forty thousand packages of the Keiffer pear dur- 

 ing the year, from half a barrel to a barrel, nearly hand picked, and 

 as Mr. Hale said about picking other fruit, they make three pick- 

 ings. They pick the large fruit first, before they are over-ripe, send 

 them away to cold storage, and gradually get the whole crop stored 

 away. 



Last year was a good year for any man who had apples to store 

 away, or almost any fruit, and this year is equally as good as far as 

 the pear goes. A large lot of apples have been on the market 

 and prices have been very low for poor fruit, but a number one fruit 

 will bring nearly as much in our market now as it did last year at 

 this time. The Keiffer pear was brought into the market and 

 shipped to the West. They sold from 15 to 20 cents a basket. 

 One gentleman hauled his pears to the depot in the fall and got 

 20 cents a basket for them, and the party he sold them to received 

 day before yesterday, $1.10 a basket for them, F. O. B., Philadelphia. 



36—7—1906. 



