GENERAL PRACTICE. STORING FRUIT. 207 



wall coping, taking care to shut out the air cavity from the ventilating openings. 

 Avoid sliding iron gratings ; they do not shut off close, and rarely work well long. 



Light is essential for storing, examining, and obtaining supplies of fruit. Windows 

 are best on the shaded side, preferably northward. Avoid skylights ; they are often 

 leaky, difficult to cover when light is not wanted, and sometimes buried by snow 

 when light is most needed. Two windows are ample for a large room. Each 

 should be 4 feet 6 inches in height, and 3 feet 6 inches in width, including casings, 

 giving about 4 feet by 3 feet of sash, which should be formed into upper and lower 

 lights of equal depth, both hung and moving past each other. These may be glazed 

 with |-inch polished plate-glass, forming two handsome squares in each window, or 

 a sash bar can be fixed up the middle, dividing it into four, for glazing with 21-oz. 

 sheet glass. Provide woollen roller blinds to each window, with folding shutters 

 inside, fitting quite close ; also sliding shutters opening at the inner face of the wall 

 inside, thus forming a double air cavity. 



The doors should be on the east or north side or end, 3 feet wide, or a little 

 less, in the clear. Let an inner door be fixed, faceable with the inside of the wall, 

 opening inwards, and double-boarded, so as to form a cavity between the boards, 

 having a similar door on the outside opening outwards, the space between the boards 

 stuffed with dry hairfelt. All the hinges, locks, and fasteners for windows and 

 ventilators should be brass or bronze, and the latches for doors should be sunk or 

 not more than flush. 



The walls may be plastered or, preferably, cemented inside. Glazed tiles are neat, 

 and encourage neither insects nor fungi. Covering the walls and ceiling with narrow 

 match boarding, tongued and grooved, also well seasoned, stained and varnished, gives 

 the interior an appearance of neatness ; but the boarding must be kept clear of the 

 wall by inch strips of wood, and particular care must be taken not to interfere in 

 the slightest with the ceiling or inner wall in fixing the wooden lining, for keeping 

 the air cavity intact is of the greatest consequence. Carefully effected, the lining is 

 advantageous in forming a second air cavity of great value in keeping fruit. 



Fire heat cannot be dispensed with, for frost should be excluded, and damp 

 expelled. A stove or fireplace inside is objectionable, on account of fumes, dust,, 

 and drying the air. Hot-water pipes are best; they should be placed in a close 

 chamber or flue under the paths, with openings to admit their warmth as required. 

 A flow and a return 4 -inch pipe are ample, and there should be a valve on each 



