1879.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



95 



trusting. The plants, fruits, or vegetables are 

 disi»la3-ed on dirty boards, or perhaps with some 

 little attempt at neatness, or dirty paper hastily 

 thrown over the dirty boards. The articles ex- 

 liibited are jumbled together without any tasteful 

 arrangement, or often the articles themselves \ 

 are of the most primitive character in taste or 

 •culture. Horticultural societies are for the pur- ! 

 pose of elevating horticultural taste in the 

 localities where they exist. Premiums and \ 

 awards do not constitute the whole of their duties. I 

 Their own example has much to do with the | 

 success of their labors, and a pretty exhibition [ 

 room should be the beginning of their good j 



work. 



1. 



Pennsylv^vnia Fruit Grower's Society, i 

 — This society held a very successful annual 

 meeting at Reading. Mr. Josiah Hoopes, Pres- 

 ident, being unwell and absent, Mr. Henry M. 

 Etigle, of Marietta, Vice-President, presided, i 

 Valuable information was contributed by Caspar | 

 Hiller on apple culture in Lancaster County ; by i 

 Judge Stitzel, on that of Berks County. Various ; 

 members paid their respects to the curculio on | 

 the plum and cherry. Messrs. Zew, Garrettsou, j 

 Punk and Miller discussed fertilizing and fruit 

 growing ; Merceron gave Ills experience in grape 

 culture, and Satterthwaite on pear culture. Mr. \ 

 Engle on vineyard management. The chief! 

 feature of the meeting was the great number of 

 new members who gave their experiences, and 

 in this way there was much going out of the way | 

 of beaten paths in opinions, and much more 

 new " food for thought " thrown in than is usual. 

 The Hon. Judge Stitzel gave the following very 

 interesting essay on fruit preserving houses : 



Many of the finest fruits, says Judge Stitzel, 

 naturally undergo speedy decay, and those most 

 highly esteemed are often only to be enjoyed by 

 those who produce them, and cannot be put into 

 market except for immediate consumption. This 

 decay has been found to take place most rapidly 

 when the fruit is exposed to considerable or fre- 

 quent changes in temperature. We know that 

 certain kinds of grapes, packed in saw dust were 

 imported to this country from warmer climates ; 

 we found that unripe berries could be preserved 

 in their natural state a long time in bottles or 

 jars, filled in with dry sand or saw-dust and the 

 jars corked or sealed and placed in the ground a 

 considerable depth to preserve an equable tem- 

 perature. This method could be employed with 

 many fruits as well as vegetables. Pears, the 



finest kinds of which are apt to rot immediately 

 after maturity, were found capable of preserva- 

 tion for months by being closely covered in stone 

 jars and kept in a cool place. Similar experi- 

 ments revealed the fact that an evenly cold 

 temperature was a reliable preventive of decay 

 in fruit and have led to the construction of the 

 modern fruit house. The value and convenience 

 of this quite recent improvement will be ai)pareut 

 when we consider the great advantage in keep- 

 ing fruit until the next ripening season, thus 

 enabling us to get the very highest prices for 

 what we have to sell, after the market- has 

 become bare of such fruit as has been kept in 

 cellars, or sliipped from other localities, besides 

 the advantage of having it for family use all the 

 year round. I may say without fear or contra- 

 diction that fully thirty-three per centum of all 

 fruits stored in the ordinary way, annually go to 

 waste ; this would of itself more than pay the 

 interest upon the cost of a modern fruit house. 

 This is true of the apple crop itself, and the same 

 may be said of pears. I am satisfied that if pears 

 are properly handled and put into the fruit house 

 until the market becomes bare of those varieties 

 sold out of the orchards, twice the amount of 

 money can be made out of them. They should 

 be carefully picked when matured, but before too 

 ripe, and they will improve in flavor when 

 allowed to ripen fully in the fruit house. In this 

 way such varieties as the Buerre Easter, Colum- 

 bia, and Vicar of Winkfield will keep until the 

 following April. That many kinds of vegetables, 

 berries and stone fruit can be preserved a greater 

 length of time than in the ordinary way, ha.s 

 been demonstrated by the use of the fruit house. 

 Cider will also keep sweet much longer than 

 when kept in cellars where the temperature is 

 constantly varying. The temperature in a well 

 constructed fruit house can easily be kept within 

 a variation of eight degrees, say between 32" and 

 40°, and proper care should always be taken in 

 regard to ventilation, as it is to this that we can 

 attribute the main success in preserving fruit. 

 A refrigerator or fruit house can be constructed 

 at a very little cost, say from $250 to $500 that 

 would admit of storing one thousand bushels of 

 fruit; this would accommodate a half dozen 

 neighbors who might club together and erect one 

 at their joint expense,- or one of their number 

 might build one and by a charge for storage of 

 ten or twelve cents per bushel, receive more than 

 the interest upon his investment, besides thp 

 cost of stocking it with ice. 



