CHAPTER XII. 



METHODS OF KEEPING AND STORING FRUITS AND 



VEGETABLES. 

 Apples. 



1. Keep the fruit as cool as possible without freezing. 

 Select only normal fruit, and place it upon trays in a moist 

 but well ventilated cellar. If it is desired to keep the 

 fruit particularly nice, allow no fruits to touch each other 

 upon the trays, and the individual fruits may be wrapped 

 in tissue paper. For market purposes, pack tightly in 

 barrels, and store the barrels in a very cool place. 



2. Some solid apples, like Spitzenberg, are not injured 

 by hard freezing, if they are allowed to remain frozen 

 until wanted and are then thawed out very gradually. 



3. Many apples, particularly russets and other firm 

 varieties, keep well when buried after the manner of pit- 

 ting potatoes. Sometimes, however, they taste of the 

 earth. This may be prevented by setting a ridge pole 

 over the pile of apples in forked sticks, and making a roof 

 of boards in such manner that there will be an air space 

 over the fruit. Then cover the boards with straw and 

 earth. Apples seldom keep well after removal from a pit 

 in spring. 



4. Apples may be kept by burying in chaff. Spread 

 chaff buckwheat-chaff is good on the barn floor, pile on 

 the apples and cover them with chaff and fine broken or 

 chopped straw two feet thick, exercising care to fill the 

 interstices 



(104) 



