52 STATE POMOI.OGICAL S0CIE;TY. 



think I can cool them in the back part of the building as readily 

 as in the front. The winters I have kept them in there, I have 

 been in there several times and the thermometer would not vary 

 somtimes a degree in a month or two. I almost thought while 

 Mr. Clark was talking yesterday I could hold them more evenly 

 than he did with his ice, but I suppose I am a little egotistical on 

 that point. But certainly for anything that is so cheap, and any- 

 thing that any one of you can do — -now if a man has any space, 

 any barn room, one part of his barn that he can spare, by fixing 

 it up with these air spaces it is just as good as to build a separate 

 building. You see I am at a disadvantage. This building is a 

 mile and a half away from my home. If it was right at home I 

 could go out in the evening and open all the ventilators and let 

 in the cold air and I think I could have it down way below forty 

 — it was almost down to 40 Monday. Mr. Clark told you that 

 home storage house down to forty was as good as cold storage 

 I believe at 32 in his case. I have been there a few times during 

 these cold snaps and opened it, and have gone up when it grew 

 warmer and shut it up, and in that way I think it was down to 

 42 or 43 when I was up there last.. Of course this warm weather 

 it may work up a little but it is so gradual the apples don't 

 change as they would in an open building. 



Mr. Gilbert : Have you held your apples through any con- 

 siderable, prolonged seasons of low temperature? 



A. The year that we had those 40 barrels that I spoke of in 

 there, he said he would like to leave them there, as I said, until 

 about Christmas, and I simply shut the house up very carelessly 

 and didn't put on any battens as I should have if I had supposed 

 they were going to stay till February. About ten days before he 

 took them the thermometer went down to 25 below zero, and 

 those apples they had chilled the least bit, but not so but what 

 they barreled them up as they were. It was an old buyer that 

 bought them. Of course they couldn't have been very badly 

 chilled or he wouldn't have shipped them without thawing out. 

 If I had known they were to stay there I could have had it warm 

 enough. There is not the least trouble to keep them from freez- 

 ing if you attend to it properly. I don't worry a mite about that, 

 I shouldn't about keeping them from now to next April if I 

 thought it was the proper thing to do as far as the market goes. 



