140 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



only eighty-five cents or a dollar a barrel leads people who 

 have no apples in their parts of the country to send there, 

 expecting they can get apples put up in barrels delivered at 

 the station for about eighty-five cents ; but that is a business 

 of quite another character. We have to pay thirty-five cents 

 each for new apple barrels to put up our crop in, and to sort 

 them carefully into seconds and thirds, and head up the 

 barrels, is quite another business than what it is to take 

 them .right from the trees and transport them directly to the 

 cars and pour them in. The agent is not the seller in New 

 York at all, and he has to handle a good deal of indifierent 

 fruit. Those who dispose of their fruit in that way have had 

 a very handsome receipt, perhaps of a couple of hundred 

 dollars, from an orchard of an acre or two. This they have 

 secured by their own labor, and that of one or two men in 

 a week's time spent in gathering. They made a very fair 

 thing at that very low price. 



We ought to have apples for family use the whole year 

 round. It is not at all difficult to accomplish it, and have the 

 apples in good condition. We never expect to be out of 

 apples. We expect to have old apples until the boys prefer 

 the fresh green ones. Let them be placed in barrels, or 

 boxes, or bins, in a cool cellar, one that is not very dry is 

 preferable. The cellars upon our hills all have water rising 

 in them and flowing off in drains, hence the apples rarely 

 shrivel up. We have found very great advantage in the last 

 few years in thoroughly whitewashing the cellar. Some new 

 cellars that never had been used before, with an abundance 

 of paint and mortar all about them, furnished apples in 

 spring of fine flavor, excellent quality and purity of color ; 

 taking a hint from that fact, we have found that a thorough 

 cleansing of the cellar, and the abundant use of whitewash on 

 the walls, is a very great help in preserving the quality and 

 in keeping the apple from decay. Now, if you want to have 

 the perfect flavor of the apple retained, do not put your 

 apples into a cellar in which cabbage and turnips and strong- 

 smelling vegetables are stored, or where you keep codfish 

 and kerosene, or other grocery articles ; for if they do not 

 afiect the flavor of the apple, they do detract from its pure 

 and finest aroma. Keep them in a clean cellar, as cold as 



