150 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



horticultural subjects, and I think our librarian could find a book 

 or pamphlet which would describe that sufficiently. It would be 

 quite a story to go into, and I don't think we have the time for it 

 this afternoon. 



Question. Can any of the gentlemen give us advice as to the 

 best conditions under which to keep apples? Very fine apples, 

 good looking apples in the fall when they are picked frequently 

 go to pieces and rot. Is the trouble the condition of keeping or 

 the fungous conditions of the trees? 



Mr. Wheeler. The question is asked as to the best method of 

 keeping apples. Prof. Sears has just had a fine storage plant built 

 on the grounds in Amherst, and I think he is in a good position 

 to answer that question. 



Prof. Sears. I will ask Prof. Pickett to answer it. 



Prof. Pickett. I have no objection to answering that. The 

 keeping qualities of apples depend on a great many things. First, 

 the variety; second, on the stage of maturity in which they are 

 picked; third, the weather when they are picked; fourth, on the 

 disease or fungous growth that may have checked the apple; 

 fifth, upon the temperature of the storage and the moist or dry con- 

 ditions; sixth, the celerity in which the fruit is got into storage; 

 and then the chance for infection. 



I think I know what that man has in mind. I have no friends 

 up in Durham this winter at all, because I sold them sonie nice 

 looking apples last fall, and they did not keep very well. They 

 were Baldwin apples, and they looked fine when they were sold; 

 they were unusually large in size, but a great many of them went 

 soft within a short time. I laid that to weather conditions during 

 the summer and to over-maturity at the time of picking. We had 

 a very dry, hot summer that had a tendency to mature the apples 

 earlier. We however left them and picked them at the ordinary 

 time, and I am pretty well satisfied now that they were at least 

 two weeks beyond the ordinary maturity when they were picked, 

 and as a result of that they went down in storage and spoiled very 

 rapidly. There wasn't any brown rot or any ordinary black rot 

 on the apple, any of them. They just simply went to pieces. You 

 could take one in your hand and squeeze it, and it would squash 

 right up. Many of them had the brown core which one of the 

 gentlemen inquired about. 



