GENERAL PRACTICK.STORIXG FRi'lT. 20 j 



removal. Easy separation at the natural junction of the footstalk with the spur is the 

 best criterion of the gathering period. If the fruit holds firmly, requiring force to sever 

 its connection, or needs its stalk broken by twisting, it is still deriving support from 

 the tree. Plucking fruit off trees with buds or spurs attached cannot be too strongly 

 censured. The specimens which require much force to detach will not keep sound. 



Some varieties are best when left to ripen on the trees. This applies to summer 

 apples, but a few of these, also early pears, become mealy when left too long, while several 

 late varieties are spoiled through being gathered too soon. Frost seldom prevails so 

 early and severely in autumn as to prejudicially affect these, and they should not be 

 gathered for keeping until the kernels are brown and the fruit parts readily from the 

 trees. All fruit for storing should be gathered when dry, preferably in continued dry 

 weather. The gathering baskets should be lined with soft material, and each fruit 

 placed in them without bruising. Care must be taken to prevent such injury. 

 Choice fruit ought to be placed in a single layer in trays or flat baskets, and placed in 

 the fruit room with the greatest care. Plucking fruit off trees in handfuls, throwing 

 it into unlined baskets, and shooting the contents into hampers for conveyance to the 

 store is a certain means of impairing the using, keeping, and selling value of the crops. 

 Apples and pears are more liable to injury by rough handling than eggs are, and need 

 greater care ; slight bruises, not apparent at the first, destroy the tissue and cause decay. 

 In gathering fruit, it should be sorted, separating the small and defective from the clean 

 and fine samples. The less fruit is moved about the better ; therefore, gather and store 

 with the utmost care, in view of sound keeping and bright specimens. 



STORING FRUIT. 



The principal object to aim at in the storing of fruit is the avoidance of decay. 

 This is induced by a combination of moisture, warmth, and the oxygen of the 

 atmosphere ; therefore, the more these are excluded the sounder and longer the fruit 

 will retain its characteristic value ; but always on condition that its tissues are not 

 injured, either in conveying to, or examining in, the store. Even when the skin is 

 not broken, the cells may le ruptured, which hastens fermentation, to be speedily 

 followed by putrefaction. To insure the sound preservation of fruit, a low temperature, 

 still atmosphere, and darkness are essential. Cold and the exclusion of atmospheric 

 air allows ripening to proceed by very slow degrees, and immobility of the confined 

 air insures the carbonic dioxide, exhaled by ripening fruit, acting as a powerful 



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