COLD STORAGE OF FRUITS. 



311 



A fourth means of storage is the large 

 warehouse, where space may be rented. 

 There are a few of these in Ontario now, 

 'there will be more when the demand in- 

 creases. The rates at these are moderate, 

 so moderate that it can rarely happen that 

 the fruit grower will not have a good mar- 

 gin of profit after deducting the cost of stor- 

 age from the advance in the price of fruit 

 during the storage season. A price list at 

 hand from a large cold storage warehouse 

 gives storage rates as follows : 



Barrel, 10 cents per month, 25 cents per 

 season ending May ist. Bushel box, 5 

 cents per month, 15 cents per season. Box 

 containing one-quarter barred, 4 cents per 

 month, 12 cents per season. 



SUMMARY. f 



1. Apples and pears keep best when wrap- 

 ped singly in paper, and packed in a shallow 

 box not larger than a bushel. They ship 

 best when, in addition, they are packed in 

 layers with excelsior between. 



2. Apples keep better at a temperature of 

 31 degrees than at a higher temperature. 

 The experiment does not show what is the 

 best temperature for pears. 



3. Cold storage cannot make bad fruit 

 good ; neither can it keep bad fruit from be- 

 coming worse. Only good specimens will 

 keep for any length of time in cold storage, 

 or will pay for storage. 



4. For long storage, it pays to select the 

 best fruit and to pack it in the best manner 

 known. The extra labor and the cost of 



material are more than repaid in the greater 

 quantity and better quality of fruit left at 

 the end of the storage period. 



5. With apples and pears at least, and, it 

 seems likely, for most kinds of fruit, the 

 fruit shpuld be picked and stored in advance 

 of dead ripeness. The maturing process 

 goes on more slowly in cold storage than on 

 the tree or bush. 



6. With the two kinds of fruit tried, ap- 

 ples and pears, the medium sizes of fruit 

 keep longer than the largest, all being per- 

 fect specimens and picked at the same time. 

 It would, therefore, be an advantage, espec- 

 ially with pears and peaches, to pick the 

 larger specimens first, and leave the smaller 

 to mature later. 



7. Fruit, on being removed from cold 

 storage, should be allowed to warm gradual- 

 ly, and moisture should not be allowed to 

 deposit upon it. But if the wetting cannot 

 be prevented, then the fruit should be spread 

 out and dried as quickly as possible. 



8. With all kinds of fruit there is a time 

 limit beyond which it is unprofitable to hold 

 the fruit in cold storage, or anywhere else. 

 That limit, for sound fruit, is dead ripeness. 

 Duchess pears can be kept profitably until 

 late in December ; Fameuse, or Snow apples, 

 until March or April. The time limit has 

 to be determined for each kind of fruit. 



9. In addition to proper conditions in the 

 storage room, the most important points in 

 the storage of fruit are the selection of 

 sound fruit, grading into uniform sizes, one 

 variety only in a case ; and careful packing. 



Pear Trees do not often reach great size, 

 but they do achieve greatness sometimes by 

 the fruit they produce. Under modem sys 

 tems of cultivation this is not so remark- 

 able ; but it is recorded in a quaint volume? 

 of Scottish lore, published in the early part 

 of the nineteenth century, that at Melrose a 



single pear tree for fifty years yielded the 

 interest of the money paid for the garden 

 and a house in it; while in 1793 two trees 

 thgre yielded 60,000 pears. Such an enor- 

 mous crop would be difficult to surpass now, 

 notwithstanding the immense improvements 

 that have been effected in fruit culture. 



