33S STATE HORTTCULTURA.L SOCIETY. 



the windfalls, culls and waste of a commercial orchard may be made to 

 go a Ions: way toward paying the running expenses. 



While the manufacture of fruit spirits is not popular in some sec- 

 tions, it is the only way to answer the question, besides it enables the 

 fruit-growers to furnish the laboring man more work and pay him bet- 

 ter wages and give his children better schooling. 



It is an inducement to the orchardist to clean up and take out all 

 wormy, scabby and diseased fruit that woull otherwise remain on the 

 ground and breed destruction for the next crop. 



Mr. Chairman, yoar secretary has asked me to answer this question, 

 and if I have not suggested anything that will help your orchardist to 

 utilize his culls, I may at least have told some ways that will not pay, 

 so that they need not make the mistake that so many have made, and 

 squander their means in canning factories to be sold out at 50 cents or 

 less on the dollar, after running the first year at a great loss. 



J. C. Evans. 



Prolonging the Early Apple Season. 



There are at least three things to be observed in trying to prolong 

 the ordinary season of apples, if we would be successful. First, care- 

 ful handling in picking; second, picking at the i)roper time, and third, 

 storing in a cool place. J. J. Thomas says that "Mankind consists of 

 two grand divisions, the careless and the careful. Each individual 

 may be assigned his place under these two great heads by observing 

 how he picks or gathers fruit." Much of the diflBculty in keeping 

 apples arises from careless handling of the fruit while it is being picked. 

 This is especially true of early fall apples as they are generally picked 

 before the temperature of the air sufficiently lowered to arrest decay, 

 which begins immediately where the apple is bruised. 



My observation leads me to believe that farmers do not exercise 

 the same caution in handling fall apples that they do in the case of 

 winter varieties. Many seem to have an idea that they will not keep 

 long anyway, and so they are thrown into the wagon and hustled o& to 

 town as soon as possible. I have seen the Fameuse or Snow brought 

 into market this fall in such a damaged condition that it was impossible 

 to keep them but a few days, when they should keep until the holidays, 

 even in our warm climate. On the other hand, I have seen the Golden 

 Sweet, a summer variety, on exhibition in November. These were kept 

 in an ordinary cellar, but they had not been bruised by careless hand- 

 ling. The best keeping apples we have will remain in good condition 

 but a short time after they have been bruised. Then the degree of 



