The Canadian Horticulturist. 357 



On the 31st uf October, 1894 — that is, very late in the season and at a very 

 unfavorable time — Mr. Petit placed, with other fruits and a bottle filled with loo 

 centimeters (61 cubic inches) of alcohol at 96°, some bunches of grapes known 

 as " Chasselas de Fontainebleu," fresh from the vine, in a brick recipient in the 

 form of a parallelopiped, cemented inside and closed as hermetically as possible 

 by a common wooden door. In two similar recipients contiguous to the first, 

 one of which was kept open and the other closed, but without alcohol, were 

 stored similar fruits from the same trees and vines. The fruits were laid on 

 wood shavings. The recipients were built in a very damp cellaf, the tempera- 

 ture of which varied regularly from 10° to 8° C (50° to 461° F.) during the 

 whole time the experiment lasted. 



On November 20, the grapes placed in the recipient left open, and especi- 

 ally so those in the closed recipient without alcohol, were mostly rotten and 

 covered with mold and were immediately removed. In the recipient containing 

 the bottle of alcohol, the grapes were beautiful ; on one bunch, two grapes had 

 turned brown, but were firm, full, and free of mold ; they did not taste at all 

 sour, thus differing essentially from moldy grapes, especially those subject to 

 Penicillium glauaim. The hair hygrometer in the recipient registered 98°. On 

 December 7, the bunches of grapes in the recipient containing the alcohol had 

 kept their fine aspect ; on most of them, however, one or two grapes had turned 

 brown and were in the same condition as those above referred to. On Decem- 

 ber 24, same results ; on most of the bunches could be seen one or two grapes 

 commencing to decay! At the end of nearly two months, each bunch had lost 

 but from two to four grapes each and all were in a perfect state of preservation, 

 the stalks being perfectly green and the grapes firm, full, and savory, and having 

 all the qualities of fresh-cut grapes. 



At the conclusion of the experiment, 28 cubic centimeters (17 cubic inches) 

 of alcohol at 60° remained in the bottle out of the 100 cubic centimeters (61 

 cubic inches) at 96', but, as Mr. Petit remarks, the door of his recipient had not 

 been built with great care and did not close hermetically, hence a useless con- 

 sumption of alcohol. 



This process offers many advantages. It is simple, easy of application, and 

 cheap, and, if adopted by our fruit growers, would allow them not only to hold 

 their fine fruits until they can dispose of them at a fair price, but would also 

 insure them handsome profits during the winter months. 



Henry P. du Bellet, 

 Rheims. France. American Consul. 



Grafting Apples and Pears on the Hawthorn.— Fashions go and 



come in Horticulture as in other things, and the same idea comes up and down 

 with every ebb and flow of fashion's tide. The apple and pear will graft on the 

 hawthorn. They keep dwarf, and bear early when so grafted. For a few years 

 the nurseryman sells all he can raise, then for a few years he burns them all. 

 Just now the inquiry for them seems on the rise again — for about the fifth time 

 during the last fifty years. — Meehans' Monthly for October. 



