m 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



" The Dry Friiiis, such as filberts, chestnuts, &c., 

 are gathered at the moment when they detach them- 

 selves from the trees. 



" In gathering fruits, a dry time and a cloudless sky 

 diould be chosen ; and the middle of the day, from 

 noon to four o'clock, is the best time to operate, as 

 the fruits are charged with less humidity, the flavor is 

 more concentrated, and those destined to be preserved 

 keep better. This rule applies to all fruits. 



" 2d. Mode of Gathering. — The best method of 

 gathering fruits consists in detaching them one by one 

 with the hand. All pressure should be avoided as 

 far as possible, as every bruise is followed by a brown 

 spot which gives place to and brings on the rapid 

 decay of the entire fruit 



n. PEESERVATION. 



■The preservation of fruits can only be applied to 

 those which ripen during the winter, and which, de- 

 tached from the tree before the first frosts, are placed 

 under shelter from the cold to complete their maturity. 

 The grape only is an exception to this. Summer and 

 autumn fruits are also preserved, but only by the aid 

 of certain proceedings, such as drying, and cooking 

 more or less perfect, added to the exclusion of air or 

 the addition of sugar — proceedings which result in 

 discoloring the fruit and altering their flavor more or 

 less sensibly. We cannot here describe the diSerent 

 methods. 



" To preserve the fruits of winter, it is necessary, 

 first, to prevent the action of frost, which disorganizes 

 them completely; second, to retard the progress of 

 their maturity in such a manner that a certain num- 

 ber of them will not ripen till toward the month of 

 May in the following year. Experience has demon- 

 strated that decomposition succeeds quite rapidly to 

 complete maturity, and that it is impossible to pro- 

 long their preservation beyond this point. 



" To obtain more or less perfectly the two-fold con- 

 dition which we come to describe, depends upon the 

 construction of the place in which the fruits are de- 

 posited, the fruit-room, and to the care which they 

 receive. 



"Ist Of the Fruit-room. — The fruit-room will 

 give the more satisfactory results in proportion as it 

 fills the sis following conditions: 



" 1. That its temperature he uniformly equal. It 

 is by changes of temperature, which expand or rarify 

 the liquids , contained in the fruits, that fermen- 

 tation is excited and the interior organization de- 

 stroyed — phenomena from which result maturity or 

 ripeness. 



" 2. That this temperature should be eight or ten 

 degrees above freezing. A higher temperature fa- 

 vors fermentation too much. If, on the contrary, it is 

 lowered two or three degrees, this fermentation ceases, 

 and maturation becomes stationary. Thus we see 

 fruits preserved five or six months in an ice-house. 

 In this case the end aimed at has been exceeded; for 

 we are obliged, in taking them from the ice-house, to 

 expose the fruits for a certain length of time to a 

 higher temperature, in order to ripen them. The 

 fruits thus preserved ripen afterwards with difficulty, 

 and their quality is often found altered. 



"3. That the fruit-room be deprived of the action 

 of the light. This agent also accelerates maturation 



in facilitating the chemical reactions which produce 

 this phenomenon. 



"4. That- all the carbonic acid discharged froin 

 the fruits be retained in Ike atmosphere. This gaa, 

 it appears from experiments of Couverchel, con- 

 tributes powerfully to the preservation of fruits. 



" 5. That the atmosphere be more dry than humid. 

 Humidity is also a condition necessary to fermenta- 

 tion ; it diminishes the resistance of tissue in the 

 fruits, and favors the effusion of its juices. It is, then, 

 proper to avoid its accumulation in the fruit-room ; 

 but it must never be completely dry, for the fruita 

 losing then, by evaporation, a considerable quantity 

 of the aqueous fluids wither, dry up, and do not ripen. 



"6. That the fruits are so placed as to diminish 

 as far as possible the pressure ivhich they exercise 

 upon each other. This continued pressure determines 

 the rupture of the vessels and cells toward the point 

 of pressure, the different fluids are mingled, and this 

 mixture promotes the chemical combinations which 

 result in maturity. 



" We propose to construct a fruit-room to fulfill 

 these conditions, in the following manner : 



" We would choose a very dry soil, somewhat ele- 

 vated, facing the north, and completely shaded from 

 the sun by high plantations of evergreen trees. The 

 dimensions are to be determined by the quantity of 

 fruit to be preserved. That of which we give the 

 plan (fig. 2) is 15 feet long in the inside, 12 feet wide, 

 and 9 feet high. This will give place to 8,000 fruits, 

 allowing each one to occupy 4 inches square. It is 

 sunk 2^ feet in the ground ; and if the soil is very 

 dry, it may be 3 feet. This enables us the more easily 

 to guard the atmosphere against the external tem- 

 perature. To prevent surface water from accumtt- 

 lating in the surrounding soil and filtering into the 

 fruit-room, the surface of the ground should descend 

 from the walls, and these should be constructed of 

 cement a foot above the soU. 



" This fruit-room is enclosed by two walls (A and 

 B), leaving between them an open space (G) about 

 10 inches wide. This stratum of air interposed be- 

 tween the two walls is the surest means of protecting 

 the interior from the exterior temperature. The two 

 walls are each 12 inches thick, constructed mth a 

 sort of mortar, or mud, made of clay and straw. { 

 This material is cheap, and on the whole a bad con- i 

 ductor of heat, and on this account preferable to com- 



