238 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



in appearance. Any good sour apple will answer the purpose. 

 A good proportion is a quart of cranberries to a peck of apples. 

 If the Iron apple is properly taken care of it will keep until 

 August. At this season of the year it is necessary to bring them 

 into a warm room to ripen them, as you would pears. It is 

 worthy of observation, that every apple that keeps well, and 

 keeps it's flavor well, is coated with wax, rendering it impervious 

 to the air. It may be scraped off the surface with a knife, and 

 will burn. 



Mr. Hite. — Why not coat apples artificially with wax when 

 they are deficient in it ? 



Mr. Robinson. — It will keep eggs, and I see no reason why it 

 should not keep apples.' 



Mr. Carpenter. — It is well known that potatoes exposed to the 

 air acquire a green color. I have seen within a few days pota- 

 toes which had been coated with varnish, and had been exposed 

 for two months to the air and light, in which scarcely any change 

 was perceptible. Vegetables have been also coated with wax and 

 with good effect. I have no doubt that it would have a tendency 

 to preserve fruit, by preventing evaporation; for I suppose the 

 cause of decay to be that the moisture is evaporated, and the air 

 then penetrates the fruit and decomposes it. 



GEAFTING WAX. 



Mr. Hite. — A splendid grafting wax may be made in this way : 

 Melt together twenty-eight parts of common pitch and twenty- 

 eight parts of Burgundy pitch ; put in fourteen parts tallow 

 and sixteen parts beeswax ; then stir in fourteen parts of yellow 

 ochre, finely pulverized. 



Mr. Burgess. — That gets so hard that it cannot be removed. 

 I think a better grafting plaster may be made of equal parts of 

 mutton fat and beeswax. In cold weather this mixture gets very 

 hard, but in warm weather it softens, and the tree can grow. I 

 have used it for twenty years. When a limb is cut from a tree 

 apply this, and the tree will grow and throw it off". 



Mr. Carpenter. — I have used one lb. of tallow and one lb. of 

 beeswax to two lbs. of rosin, and found it to answer the purpose 

 admirably. Some use equal parts of tallow, beeswax and rosin. 

 I have never tried it without rosin. 



