30 FRUIT BOOK. 



OK PRESERVING PEARS. 



Upon the methods resorted to for keeping the 

 finest kinds of pears, much has been Written of 

 late years. Summer fruits, those particularly 

 which ripen upon the tree, require to be carefully 

 gathered and placed in a well-ventilated and cool 

 room. The autumn and winter fruit is pre- 

 served with more difficulty. It has been gener- 

 ally admitted, that our winter sorts should remain 

 upon the trees as long as possible, requiring all 

 the ripening our climate will afford, which is un- 

 doubtedly the case. It has been recently sug- 

 gested, that our winter table pears should be gath- 

 ered earlier than we have heretofore done it, from 

 the fact that many varieties which were gathered 

 in October, ripened better than those of the 

 same kinds left upon the trees a month later. 

 We found such to be the case with the " Lew- 

 is," and also with the " Bleeker's Meadow." 

 The secret, we apprehend, is, however, not 

 so much in their being thus early gathered, 

 but that they were kept in a uniformly warmer 

 temperature. The remark of T. A. Knight, 

 the most practical pomologist of modern times, 

 we think rational. He says, "In order to 

 ripen our fine pears, they should be placed in a 

 dry and warm atmosphere." 



A writer (Mr. Walker), in the January num- 

 ber of Hovey's Magazine, says : " The speci- 

 mens (pears) which were matured in a close desk, 

 the temperature of the room being kept from sixty 

 to seventy degrees of heat during the day, and 

 fifty to fifty-five during the night, were all very 

 much superior to those which matured in a room 

 of lower temperature." / 



