GATHERING AND PRESERVING PEARS. 141 



Regarding the best method of keeping or ripen- 

 ing our fine melting winter pears, but few in- 

 structions have as yet been given in our country ; 

 more has been done in Europe. Hitt, in his 

 Treatise on Fruit Trees, says, " After laying the 

 fruit in the fruit room to sweat, and having wiped 

 them dry with a linen cloth, they are then packed 

 in earthernware jars, between layers of well- 

 dried moss. When the jars are full, they are 

 stopped with plugs as close us possible, and bur- 

 ried a foot or more in sand." Mclntosh writes, 

 " Sand, paper, sawdust, chaff, charcoal, peat-earth, 

 coal ashes, &c., have all been used to pack fruit 

 in ; of these, dry sand, charcoal, peat^earth, and 

 coal ashes, are, in our opinion, the best medium 

 in which to pack the fruit." Mr. Ingram, of Scot- 

 land, " finds that for winter pears two apartments 

 are requisite, a colder and a warmer ; but the 

 former, though cold, must be free from damp. 

 From it the fruit is brought into the warmer 

 room as wanted; and, by means of increased 

 temperature, maturation is promoted, and the 

 fruit rendered delicious and mellow ; the Chau- 

 montel Pear, for example, is placed in close 

 drawers, so near to the stove, that the tempera- 

 ture may constantly be between sixty or seventy 

 degrees of Fahrenheit; for most kinds of fruit, 

 however, a temperature equal to fifty-five degrees 

 is found sufficient." Mr. Robert Thompson, of 

 the London Horticultural Society, has found that 

 both pears and apples keep longest when packed 

 in dry fern, in boxes or hampers, and placed in 

 a dry shed or cellar, where but a slight change 

 of temperature takes place. Mclntosh prefers 

 to keep his pears on the shelves of the fruit room, 



