220 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIKTV. 



friends and phj-sicians, for sick persons. He thought they must 

 have been frozen while in the cellar, for it was half out of ground 

 and had only an eigiit-inch wall, with a window of single glass near 

 the pears. His partner once put a bushel box of pears into an 

 out-house and forgot them until spring, when the}^ were taken out 

 in perfect condition. 



William H. Hills of Plaistow, N. H., said there are many things 

 about the keeping of fruit that are dillicult to explain. He sup- 

 posed that keeping a uniform temperature would preserve fruit. 

 Last fall the New Hampshire Agricultural Society' offered pre- 

 miums for Earl}' Bough apples, and he wrapped bis in paper and 

 packed them in jars in gypsum to keep them until the exhibition. 

 .Some that he left in his odice, which was warmed b}' a stove, kept 

 to December and then dried up, while those which he took to the fair 

 kept four days with dilliculty. He did not understand how apples 

 kept on the ground, when they would freeze on a shelf. He 

 has kept apples sound in tight barrels while those in more open 

 casks decayed. He has built a dry cellar, where the thermometer 

 sometimes falls to twenty-eight degrees, and then if more warmth 

 is desired, he puts in a lighted lamp, which raises it to thirty-two 

 degrees or more, and here apples keep exceedingly well though 

 the thermometer is as low as twenty-seven or tweut3--eight degrees 

 half the time. There has been much discussion as to whether 

 apples should be kept dr}- or damp. He knew an instance where 

 water got into a cellar, yet the apples kept well. 



Mr. Wilder said that the i)reservation of apples on the ground 

 arises from the moisture in the ground extracting the frost ; as 

 syringing plants, when frozen in the greenhouse, thaws them with- 

 out injury. He had aimed, in his paper, to show how cheajily a 

 fruit house can be made, and how fruit can be kept with a 

 little care. 



Mv. Hills thought that freezing apples once might not injure 

 them, l)ut repeated freezing and thawing would, and handling 

 while frozen would injure thera. 



O. H. Had wen said that it is one thing to cultivate apples and 

 another to i)reserve them. We are fortunate in living in a section 

 whore fruits do not all ripen at one time ; cspeciall}' the large 

 fruits, such as the ajiple and ])ear, which extend over a long period. 

 As Mr. Wilder had said, uniformly cool temperature is the impor- 

 tant puiiil ; if irregular, the ripening is a ma(ter of uncertainly. 



