OF INTEREST TO FRUIT GROWERS. 



513 



good keeping quality. It was, therefore, 

 placed in piles in the orchard or in buildings 

 before packing and storing. The investiga- 

 tions of our department have shown that this 

 opinion is bad in theory and worse in prac- 

 tice. The fruit that keeps the best is that 

 which is stored the quickest after picking ; 

 and the fruit that rots the most in the ware- 

 house is that which is delayed in the or- 

 chard or under other conditions in transit 

 to the warehouse. 



More than three-fourths of the practical 

 difficulties with fruit in storage houses is 

 the result of rough handling, coupled with 

 delaying the storage of the fruit after it is 

 picked. As soon as fruit is severed from 

 the tree its chemical and physiological ac- 

 tivities are accelerated. It ripens with un- 

 usual rapidity and most rapidly when the 

 weather is warm. As the fruit is usuallv 



moist in the barrels, or in piles, the condi- 

 tions are favorable for the rapid spread of 

 diseases. During a delay of ten days in 

 warm weather the fruit may have consumed 

 a large part of its remaining life and tne 

 disease may have become firmly established 

 before it enters the warehouse. Slack 

 pacKcd barrels, rotten fruit and financial loss 

 are the inevitable results of this practice. 



Immediate storage after picking is one of 

 the essentials in successful fruit storage. If 

 fruit, which has been stored quickly after 

 packing, decays, there is a fair presumption 

 that the conditions in which it was grown 

 produced an inherent weakness in it and 

 that the owner showed poor judgment in 

 holding it beyond the normal storage season 

 of the variety. This, of course, is provided 

 the warehouse has not been grossly mis- 

 managed. 



INTERESTING FRUIT EXHIBITS 



THE educational features at the Provin- 

 cial Fruit, Flower and Honey Show 

 were so well arranged the average fruit 

 grower might have spent a couple of days 

 very profitably examining the exhibits and 

 questioning the exhibitors. In many cases 

 the exhibits bore printed cards or slips of 

 paper explaining their educational features. 

 The exhibits made by the fruit experiment 

 stations, which are located in diflferent sec- 

 tions of the province, were very instructive. 

 The main portion of this exhibit appeared 

 on an elevated stand in the center of the hall 

 and attracted general attention. The ex- 

 perimenters who exhibited were the super- 

 intendent, Mr. Ivinus Woolverton, of 

 Grimsby, and Messrs. Harold Jones, of 

 Maitland, for Eastern Ontario; W. H. 

 Dempsey, of Trenton, for the Bay of Quinte 

 district ; Chas. Young, of Richard's Land- 

 ing, for St. Joseph's Island and Algoma ; 

 G. E. Caston, of Craighurst, for Simcoe dis 

 trict; M. Pettit, of Winona, for the Wcnt- 



worth district, and J. L. Hilborn, of Leam- 

 ington, for the Essex district. 



" An important part of our exhibit, as com- 

 pared with former years," said Supt. Linus 

 Woolverton, who was in attendance at the 

 show throughout the week, while speaking to 

 a representative of The Horticulturist, " "s 

 the separation of the desirable from the un- 

 desirable varieties of fruit. For example Mr. 

 AI. Pettit, of the Went worth station, who s 

 showing about 127 varieties of grapes, when 

 asked to set aside those which he considered 

 profitable to grow from a commercial stand- 

 point, selected only 13 kinds, or about 

 one-tenth of the total number. These varie- 

 ties were, of the black grapes, Campbell, 

 Morden, Concord and Wilder; of the red, 

 Lindley, Delaware, Agawam, Catawba and 

 Vergennes, and of the white, Niagara and 

 Moore's Diamond. 



" A similar result occurred with Mr. 

 Dempsey 's collection of apples; for he set 

 aside nearlv 100 varieties which he had 



