486 GAPtDEN MANAGEMENT. 



it to the experience of the cultivator to adapt these principles to his own cir- 

 cumstances. There cannot be the slightest doubt upon the subject, that all 

 changes of temi^erature have the most powerful influence in causing the decay 

 of fruit after it has been gathered and laid up. Whatever, then, tends in any 

 degree to correct or modify these changes is a condition favourable to the 

 preservation of it. It is for this reason that all substances that are slow con- 

 ductors of caloric are preferable to all others for the purpose of covering or 

 packing fruit ; and for the same reason darkness is more favourable to fruit- 

 keeping than light ; for uniform darkness is less susceptible of atmospheric 

 change than the continued variations of hght and shade. It is certain, also, 

 that far less evaporation goes on in darkness than in light; and this is another 

 reason why all fruit is found to keep best in a dark place. It is worthy of 

 obsen-ation, that nature has imparted to some species of fruit conditions of 

 self-preservation which it has withheld from others. Thick-skinned fruits, 

 both in apples and pears, as the different classes of russets among the former 

 wUl amply testify, are not so liable to a condensation of moisture on the sur- 

 face as the more smooth and glossy vai'ieties. A thick woolly skin not only 

 affords protection from injurious influences from without, but, under all cir- 

 cumstances, it tends to preserve a greater uniformity between the state of the 

 temperature of the atmosphere and the temperature of the natural juices of 

 the apples and pears than can possibly exist where the skin is finer and more 

 transparent. The bloom of the fruit, as was elsewhere observed, serves some- 

 what to the same end, Not unfrequently a process is adopted by means of 

 which, as soon as the fruit is gathered, a certain portion of its natural juices 

 is, as it were, drawn off, and its susceptibility of atmospheric changes propor- 

 tionately lessened. This process, which is generally known by the name of 

 "sweating," consists in throwing the different sorts of apples and pears 

 together in heaps as soon as they are gathered, covering them close with straw 

 or old carpets, in order to promote fermentation. When this has been conti- 

 nued for two or three days, they are then uncovered and wiped individually, 

 all unsound fruit being rejected and the good removed to the store-room. 

 There is no doubt that apples and pears, especially when grown upon a heavy 

 damp soil, and in a moist atmosphere, keep well after this treatment, for the 

 reason already assigned, that they are less susceptible of atmospheric change : 

 but it will always be found that the process has been adopted at too ^reat an 

 expense ; for the quality and flavour of the fruit have been more or less 

 destroyed by it. Any one may prove this for himself by a repetition of the 

 process. Alternate sweating and wiping will, after a time, leave a heap even 

 of the finest and best-flavoured fruit nothing better than a mass of vapid 

 and insipid pulp. 



1490. The following statement appears to embrace the best method:*, and 

 those that are most generally adopted for the storing and preservation of fruit. 

 It must be bonie in mind that they are not arranged in order with any refer- 

 ence to their respective merits : some of them are decidedly objectionable ; 

 but the good and bad of each will be noticed as we proceed :— r 



