Time and the Tree 31 



fruits quite through the year. The links of this 

 fruit-chain are strawberries, cherries, raspberries, 

 dewberries, blackberries, plums, apples, peaches, 

 grapes, nuts, and the gifts of the garden, between: 

 radishes, salads, peas, beans, onions, beets, pota- 

 toes, corn, okra, egg-plant, — each in succulent 

 varieties. One must live, and he may live well, 

 on the fruit-farm. The table may have fresh fruit 

 the year round if one will but take the trouble 

 to secure it. Few fruit-growers take the trouble. 

 If the housewife is also fruit-grower, helper in 

 orchard, berry-field, and vineyard, she will prove 

 to you that you cannot pick cherries and make 

 cherry pies at the same time. But if the labor 

 supply is thriftily used, cherries will be picked and 

 pies will be made. Nearly every fruit may be 

 kept sound for a time in cold storage, and kept 

 indefinitely, provided it is dried, pickled, or canned. 

 Much of this art and mystery lies on the distaff 

 side of the house. Apples, prunes, and grapes will 

 keep long: the apples, unbruised, in barrels, if 

 kept cool; the prunes, sound, in shallow boxes, cool 

 and dry; the grapes, unbroken, in dry sawdust, 

 such as is used in packing California grapes. Set 

 these treasures in a room tempered all the time 

 just above freezing, and they will keep themselves 

 for half the year. Garden produce as all bulbs, 

 tubers, and roots, keep best in cool, dry sand, 

 above freezing, but no fruit will keep (save air- 

 tight) beyond the season when its kind again is 

 forming. Evidently fruit preservation is a prob- 



