FACTORS INFLUENCING KEEPING QUALITY. 19 



method of picking- is not usually adapted to the apple merchant who 

 buys the crop of a large number of orchards, and who can not always 

 secure efficient or abundant labor, but for the specialist who is work- 

 ing- for the tinest trade and who has a storage house near by or a con- 

 venient refrigerator car service to a distant storage house, the plan 

 has much to commend it. 



INFLUENCE OF DELAYING THE STORAGE OF THE FRUIT. 



The removal of an apple from the tree hastens its ripening. As 

 soon as the growth is stopped by picking, the fruit matures more rap- 

 idly than it does when growing on the tree and maturing at the same 

 time. The rapidity of ripening increases as the temperature rises, and 

 it is checked by a low temperature. It appears to vary with the 

 degree of maturity at which the fruit is picked, the less mature 

 apples seeming to reach the end of their life as quickly as or even sooner 

 than the more mature fruit. It varies with the conditions of gfrowth, 

 the abnormally large fruit from young trees or fruit which has been 

 overgrown from other causes ripening and deteriorating very rapidly. 

 It differs with the nature of the variety, those sorts with a short life his- 

 tory, like the summer and fall varieties, or like the early winter apples, 

 such as Rhode Island Greening, Yellow BellHowcr, or Grimes Golden, 

 progressing more rapidly than the long-keeping varieties like Roxbury, 

 Swaar, or Baldwin. 



Any condition in the management of the fruit that causes it to ripen 

 after it is picked brings it just so much nearer the end of its life, 

 whether it is stored in common storage or in cold storage, while treat- 

 ment that checks the ripening to the greatest possible degree pro- 

 longs it. 



The keeping quality of a great deal of fruit is seriously injured by 

 delays between the orchard and the storage house. This is especially 

 true in hot weather and in fruit that comes from sections where the 

 autumn months are usually hot. If the apples are exposed to the sun in 

 piles in the orchard, or are kept in closed buildings where the hot, 

 humid air can not easily be removed from the pile, if transportation is 

 delayed because ears for shipment can not be secured promptly, or if 

 the fruit is detained in transit or at the terminal point in tight cars 

 which soon become charged with hot, moist air the ripening progresses 

 rapidly and the apples may alreadj' be near the point of deterioration 

 or may even have commenced to deteriorate from scald, or mellowness. 

 or decay when the storage house is reached. 



On the contrary, the weather may be cool during a similar period of 

 ■ delay and no serious injury result to the keeping quality, or the ripen- 

 ing may be checked in hot weather by shipping the fruit in refrigerator 

 cars to a distant storage house. 



