166 LIFE OF A TREE. 
that there is none left to attack and injure the 
fruit. 
Both fruit and flowers may be preserved also 
by means of cold, which seems to act by prevent- 
ing chemical decomposition from taking place ; as 
it is well known that chemical changes of this 
kind require a certain degree of warmth before 
they can be set going.* In France, where flowers 
in particular are great favourites with the people, 
they are preserved in icehouses. They are gathered 
before they have expanded, and are put into 
glazed jars perfectly clean and dry, and over 
which a tight capping of oiled silk is to be tied, so 
as to exclude the air. These jars are then placed 
in the antichamber of an icehouse, where the tem- 
perature is nearly about that at which ice melts, 
for were it colder the flowers would be frozen. 
When wanted, they may be made to unfold their 
blossoms by plunging them into luke-warm water ; 
the fibres soon resume their natural pliancy, and 
if now placed in a warm room, the stems being 
plunged in tepid water, they will expand and 
appear as fresh as if but lately culled from the 
garden or the hot-house. 
* Apples are sent from America to the East Indies preserved in ice. 
