RIPENING OF WINTER TEARS. 265 



Other wagons by the side of his contained pears of that variety which 

 were sold fur only three dollars a l)ushel, on account of their unripencd 

 condition." 



RIPENING OF WINTER TEARS. 



Much chagrin has been experienced by those who, for the first 

 time, have attempted to ripen winter pears. Many varieties pro- 

 claimed by the books as ripening from December to April, obsti- 

 nately persist in becoming- melting and luscious in November and 

 early December. 



The Winter Nelis, the Lawrence, the Beurre d'Hivcr, and others, 

 attain this delicious maturity in tlie early part of December, in- 

 stead of keeping sound and hard till February. But the most 

 disheartening and vexatious phase of the matter is, the withering, 

 shrivelling, and premature rotting of the pears, to which a still 

 later maturity has been attributed. The Easter Beurre, Glout 

 Morccau, Doyenne d'Alen9on, lose a great quantity of their juice 

 by evaporation, and resemble a potato kept one year, quite as 

 much as a pear. 



The Pear, vmlike the Apple, has little or no oleaginous matter 

 deposited upon the skin, to prevent the rapid evaporation of its 

 juice, and preserve it from shrivelling, so that the porous and un- 

 protected skin of the Pear readily allows its juice to escape. In 

 all cfibrts to preserve it, therefore, M-e must keep in view this 

 defect. Some attempts to form an artificial covering by varnishes. 

 &c., have been made, but they have all been conducted without 

 reference to the conditions necessary for ripening^ being only in- 

 tended for the preservation of the fruit. 



The law which governs these conditions may be stated as fol- 

 lows : As it is only by contact U'ith the atmosphere that pears can 

 be ripened^ and as that very atmosphere abstracts the vital fluids of 

 the fruit, it becomes a necessity that the pear should not be in con- 

 tact with free or moving atmosphere until the period of ripening lias 

 arrived. 



The Pear, like the Apple, is composed of the proximate elements, 

 starch, sugar, and albumen, with water and malic acid. The ripen- 

 ing of the fruit is the completion of that chemical process by which 

 starch is changed into sugar, and is always the first step towards 



12 



