ON GATHERING AND STORING FRUIT. 4S7 



1. Apples and pears may be sweated as above described, and then 



stored away in an apple-room on dressers, or in a dry dark vault 

 in heaps, uncovered except during frost. 



1491. This plan, though very generally adopted where apples ai*e kept in 

 large quantities for sale, is always open to the objection above stated of being 

 more or less injurious to the quality and flavour of the fruit. 



2. Fruit may be stored on open shelves and on the floor of a fruit- 



room, spread out upon straw, and covered, when necessary, with 

 the same material. 



3. In the same way, but upon dried fern-leaves, and with fern-leaves 



for a covering. 



1492. In our opinion it is by no means a good plan to store apples and 

 pcai's upon straw, nor even to cover them with it ; for straw always imparts an 

 unpleasant flavour to the fruit. Fern-leaves, when properly dried, form an 

 excellent bed for fruit to lie upon, and ai'e not liable to the same objection. 

 As a protection against frost, fern-leaves are decidedly a good covering. 



4. In baskets or hampers, lined with straw or fern-leaves, but without 



any material between the layers of fruit. 



1493. If the fruit be dry when placed in the baskets or hampers, and the 

 store-room of an even temperature, it keeps very well in this manner. How- 

 ever, for the reason assigned above, fern-leaves are preferable to straw, 



5. In boxes or casks, with sawdust. 



6. In boxes or casks, with bran. 



7. In boxes or casks, with wheat-chaff, or with oat-flights. 



1494.. Sawdust is decidedly objectionable, even though taken from the 

 hardest and most inodorous wood, for it is almost certain, after long keeping, 

 to become musty and unpleasant ; and so also does bran, which is naturally a 

 fermenting substance, and soon heats if put together in any quantity, espe- 

 cially with fruit among it. In shallow trays, bran will answer for a time very 

 well, but it will require attention. For packing fruit for conveyance, both 

 bran and sawdust also may be used with good effect. Wheat-chaff, as well 

 as oat-flights, is liable to produce the same mischief. It is quite impossible 

 to bo certain that the fruit will not become tainted by raeans of them, 

 more particularly in closed boxes, and wherever there is no ventilation. 



8. In boxes, v/ith dry sand between the fruit. 



9. In boxes, with powdered charcoal in the same way. 



1495. By adopting either of these methods, fruit may be preserved for a 

 long period ; but though sand and charcoal are good materials for keeping 

 fruit sound, they are both open to the gi-eat objection of making the skin 

 gritty and unpleasant. 



10. In jars without any material intervening between the first : the 

 jars, when covered with a piece of slate or tile, to be buried in 

 dry sand of a depth suSicient to exclude all air and to insure 

 preserwation from frost. 



1496. This plan will, undoubtedly, answer its purpose as far as prescrva! ior. in 



