A NEW PACKING MATERIAL FOR FRUITS. 



419 



of conservation of manure of increasing or 

 exhausting fertility. 



"In this spirit I can read M. Ville or Jus- 

 tus Van Liebig with inexhaustible interest. 



" Now when I came to Dean Hole's chap- 

 ter on manure I wondered how he would 

 treat it. I was not disappointed. The 

 substance of information and advice was all 

 there. So were the wise thoughts and de- 

 ductions. But in the midst of the essay on 

 what is necessarily a scientific and practical 

 subject, there was a touch of enlivening com- 

 edy skilfully introduced as Shakespeare 

 brings in the farcical interlude of comic 

 grave-diggers to relieve the too deep inter- 

 est of Hamlet. 



"This is how I remember the incident in 

 the chapter. 



" The Dean is anxious to impress the rea- 

 der with the value of horse-droppings for 

 roses. He impresses the importance of 

 saving and utilising so precious a material. 

 He mentions his own high estimate of dung. 

 And then comes the story. 



"He was returniug to the Deanerv- one 



day from a round of duty visits, and as he 

 approached the home up the garden drive, he 

 noticed that visitors had been in a carriage. 

 Their horse or horses in quitting his home 

 had dropped liberal deposits. The opportun- 

 ity was not to be lost. He hastily turned 

 into a side shed, secured a shovel, returned 

 to the gravel path, picked up the deposits 

 and hastened off with them to enrich the 

 roots of some of his beloved rose trees. As 

 he entered the Rosar}' — horror of horrors ! 

 — he met full face a party of ladies in holiday 

 garb and smiles ! The visitors in fact had 

 not departed, but were still in the garden, 

 and their first meeting with their host was 

 under circumstances which caused his cheeks 

 to emulate the glow of his own most deeply 

 tinted rose-buds I 



"There I think my recollection of the 

 book and its apt enlivening is a fair tribute 

 to the skill of the author. In the same way 

 I could fill many columns with memories of 

 his 'Memories.' 



* ' May he be preserved to us until he is a 

 hundred at least." 



A NEW PACKING MATERIAL FOR FRUITS. 



jN interesting experiment has just taken 

 place in the matter of packing fruits 

 in the colony of Victoria for ship- 

 ment to England. 



As is pretty generally known, apples and 

 pears are now brought from the Cape of 

 Good Hope and from the Australian colonies 

 in boxes holding a bushel, which are stored 

 on board ship in cool chambers. The fruits 

 are merely wrapped in tissue [paper] and 

 placed in the boxes. 



Under this system, apples have for the 

 most part come very successfully ; but pears 

 have been less satisfactory. Occasionally 

 there have been pears from the Antipodes 

 that have reached this country in a sound 

 condition, but numerous consignments have 



proved to be of little value, and the com- 

 mission agent is never able to speak of 

 such fruits or to gauge their value until 

 they have been unpacked. The freight per 

 bushel, from V'ictoria to London, for apples 

 or pears so packed and stored on board 

 ship in cool chambers, is 3s. gd. 



Instead of packing the apples wrapped in 

 tissue only, in the case of several bushels 

 that have recently arrived in London by 

 the S. S. VVakood, a quantity of asbestos, 

 or a preparation of this substance, has been 

 used. The fruits were wrapped in tissue as 

 formerly, and afterward embedded in the 

 asbestos, each fruit being perfectly sur- 

 rounded by this substance. Upon unpack- 

 ing the case, the asbestos appeared to be 



