86 PEARS WITH STKMS. 



higher prices with stems than without them. There- 

 fore, in gathering or handling fruit, this fact should 

 be taken into consideration. 



Fruit, as fast as gathered from the tree, should 

 be placed in baskets by hand. If roughly handled, 

 the fruit is bruised, and the bruised parts will rot 

 instead of ripening ; this, as a matter of course, will 

 materially injure the sale as well as the quality of 

 the pears. If the fruit is to be sold, it should be 

 assorted at the time of gathering the large, me- 

 dium, and small sized should be placed by them- 

 selves, and immediately removed to the fruit room 

 or detention house ; the latter should be dry and of 

 even temperature, not more than fifteen degrees 

 above the freezing point. Such a room may be ar- 

 ranged in the second story of an ice-house, with 

 double doors, windows, sides and roof, the space be- 

 tween need not be filled with charcoal, spent tan, or 

 other materials, for if the parts are tight, it will be 

 found that a space of confined air is the best non- 

 conductor. 



Fruit taken off in the way described, will not 

 shrink by the after evaporation of its moisture. Nor 

 should it be left on the tree sufficiently long to per- 

 mit any of the chemical changes constituting the 

 ripening process, that do not require assistance from 

 the functions of the tree itself. Most fruit when 



