STATE POMOLOGICAI, SOCIETY. 79 



now? Yes, six weeks before now. How many of the orchard- 

 ists over in Vermont, and I presume in this State, made their 

 sales weeks ago! The buyers knew there was a rush in the 

 market, they knew there would be a call, and the quicker they 

 bought them the surer they were to get them. And we are 

 obliged to sell because we are not prepared with home storage. 

 We may use cold storage, the commercial storage, if it is at our 

 hand — it can be done, it is not positively necessary for a New 

 England farmer to build his own storage. Because when we 

 learn that we can ship our fruit to a cold storage in the city 

 markets and hold it there just as well as the commercial dealers 

 can, why then that will do. But very largely New England 

 farmers don't like to do that. There are many reasons why we 

 should not do it. The commercial storage is expensive. They 

 hold their temperature by ice and by chemical conditions, but 

 up here in Maine and Vermont we have a temperature that is 

 just as well adapted for the holding of winter apples as it was 

 during the summer to grow this beautiful fruit. There is no 

 temperature in the world that can grow a better apple than the 

 temperature of New England, the northern part of it. It is just 

 adapted to the production of fine apples that have the keeping 

 qualities. And so it is with the holding of this fruit until the 

 time when it shall become matured. 



Now then, how shall we manage to have a fruit house, — a 

 home storage? I don't think it is important that we build an 

 elaborate house, an expensive house, though we may if we 

 choose. But whatever the conditions are that surround the 

 farmer who wants a fruit house, a storage house, let him build 

 according to that ; but let him be just as particular in preparing 

 that fruit house so that when a cold wave comes he is not fear- 

 ful of the frost getting through it, as he was in preparing the 

 soil for the trees and caring for them when they came to bear- 

 ing. A fruit house needs simply to be air-tight. You have the 

 cold air up here in New England to force into that building by 

 large windows on sides where the circulation is most liable to 

 go through. We can cool off a building to a considerable degree 

 of coldness before apple picking time comes. We commence 

 about the first of October to pick our winter fruit. Before that 

 there are several cold waves that come with us from the west 

 and northwest, and our west windows are opened and those cold 



