266 GATHERING, MAEKETING, AND FEUIT-EOOMS. 



decay. Fruit has reached the point of highest excellence when it 

 contains the greatest quantity of sugar, and the sugar in contact 

 with the albumen has not commenced the putrid or acetous fer- 

 mentation. 



By protecting them from free atmosphere in close cases, and by 

 preservation in a cool apartment, we are enabled to delay the ripen- 

 ing and prevent the withering of pears. There is, however, a 

 fixed limit to this preser\'ation. The inherent tendency to decay, 

 which pervades all organized matter, prevents us from more than 

 temporarily postponing it. The Duchesse d'Angouleme, which 

 may, by skillful management, be kept till Christmas, can by no 

 means be preserved as long as the Easter Beurre. 



After a pear has become somewhat withered, it can never ripen 

 fairly, as sufficient water is not present to perfect the change. It 

 will be seen at once, that all the elaborate instruction for shelving 

 an apartment, and laboriously placing the fruit in single layers 

 thereon, so as not to touch, are in entire contradiction to the rules 

 above noted. It has confounded many an amateur, to find his 

 plain and unscientific neighbor with an abundance of pears at 

 Christmas, while his own had all long before decayed. 



A gentleman who had but half a bushel of Glout Morceau 

 Pears, preserved them till late in January, by the following plan : 

 A barrel was half filled with sound Baldwin- apples, in November, 

 the pears placed upon them, and the barrel filled with apples, and 

 put away in a dry cellar ; when taken out, the pears were fresh 

 and green as when first picked, needing but an exposure of a week 

 or more in a warm room to become golden in color and deliciously 

 melting and juicy. 



All our winter pears need a somewhat longer season than we 

 usually have north of New York City. This renders their quality 

 a little uncertain ; but some attention to their growth will usually 

 obviate this uncertainty. The large amount of acid juice which 

 they contain must be overcome by the alcoholic or saccharine 

 change. If the amount of the sugar-producing principle which 

 the trees derive from the soil, or from the atmosphere, is too small, 

 the ripening will, necessarily, be imperfect. The true remedy for 

 this would naturally seem to be, that which practice has proved 



