146 Notes and Gleanings. 



Keeping Apples. — We are informed by Mr. Charles F. Curtis, of the firm 

 of Curtis & Co., one of the largest dealers in apples in Boston, that he finds a 

 cellar in the city, in a narrow street among high buildings, preferable to any 

 other place for keeping apples. The sun only strikes the attic windows ; and 

 when once cooled in winter, it will continue so cool as to keep the apples longer 

 than in any other place. The cellar is opened in cool, dry weather in winter, 

 and, when the apples are in barrels, may be kept at a temperature of two degrees 

 below freezing without injury to the fruit. A cellar so damp as not to permit 

 the barrels to shrink and open the joints is better than one too dry. When a 

 warm, damp spell is anticipated, a sufficient supply is taken from the cellar, 

 which must be immediately closed, and not opened until the weather is again 

 cool and dry. The cellar is specially adapted to Russets. Other varieties are 

 found to keep best in stores above ground, in locations similar to those de- 

 scribed, the same precautions being taken to keep the temperature uniformly 

 cool, and the air dry. So important is this deemed, that, when the weather 

 threatens to become warm during the night, a man is kept at the store all night 

 to close it when it changes. Apples should never be placed in the cellar or 

 winter store until thoroughly cooled, after being warmed by the mild days of 

 Indian summer. Mr. Curtis handles from ten to twenty-five thousand barrels 

 of apples yearly, and, with these precautions, is able to keejD fruit grown in 

 Western New York a month later than the same fruit can be kept in New York 

 city or Philadelphia, to both which places he ships apples in spring. 



California Wine and Silk. — We copy elsewhere from the Horticultu- 

 rist an estimate of the yield of wine in the whole State of California at 5,000,000 

 gallons. Mr. Charles F. Reed, President of the State Agricultural Society, 

 in his address at the opening of the S^te Fair, says, " Our wine product this 

 year will probably exceed 20,000,000 gallons." He estimates the number of 

 mulberry trees now in the state at 2,500,000, which will be greatly augmented 

 next winter. During the past year a silk manufacturing company has been 

 organized in San Francisco, and buildings for the factory are nearly completed. 



Hale's Paper Shell is a most superior variety of the shell-bark hickory, 

 which originated near Ridgewood, N. J. The nuts are large, varying from an 

 inch to an inch and a quarter long, and about the same in width. Shell thin, 

 and, instead of the regular corrugations running from base to point, as usual in 

 varieties of this species, the entire surface appears to be broken up into small 

 depressions, which gives it a wavy appearance somewhat similar to the English 

 walnut. The Hale's is certainly one of the most distinct and valuable sorts that 

 we have ever seen. There is one seedling of the Hale's, standing near the origi- 

 nal tree, which is now thirty years old ; but the nuts are quite distinct from 

 those borne by the parent tree ; and this fact shows that the only certain way 

 of perpetuating distinct varieties of hickory nuts will be in the usual mode 

 adopted with fruit trees. Rural New Yorker, 



Bulbs grown in water are greatly improved by the addition of a few drops of 

 aqua ammonia to the water each time it is changed. 



