GEXERAL PRACTICE STORING FRi'lT. 



211 



To keep choice fruit in drawers it is wrapped separately in tissue paper, after being 

 gathered and laid on a dry sweet shelf for a few days to sweat and dry. It is then 

 packed in perfectly dry, clean, sweet wheat or oat chaff, peat moss, or cocoanut fibre 

 refuse, placing an inch depth of the substance used at the bottom of the drawer for the 

 fruit to rest on, laying each one separate, and covering them about an inch deep. The 

 advantages are perfect isolation of the fruits from each other, air is excluded from all, 



Fig. 54. FRUIT KOOM, SECTION THBOUOH 0. P. (Scale : & inch = 1 foot.) 



a uniform temperature secured, and taint or contamination through decay is practically 

 prevented. 



Some persons, in storing fruit in drawers, dispense with packing material, placing 

 half an inch thickness of fire-dried pit sand or powdered charcoal over the bottom of 

 the drawer, forming a soft rest for the fruit; whilst others employ a padding of 

 cotton-wool placing in each case a square of tissue paper for the fruit to lie on. Each 

 fruit being isolated, a decaying one does not injure the others. Yet another substance 

 is available, namely, dry hair-felt. Line the drawer with it, cover with tissue paper, 



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