122 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Fenn : I knew of a house in which it was undertaken 

 to store some apples, but there was so much dampness there 

 that it ruined the fruit. The apples were not headed up. They 

 were in open barrels. But the density of the atmosphere 

 settled on the top of the apples, and the chill, or something 

 of that nature, caused a great many of the apples to burst open. 

 Even those that were down in the center of the barrels were 

 affected to some extent. I calculated it was owing to the dense 

 atmosphere. It was very cold, but at the same time there 

 was something that was wrong in principle. That was, of 

 course, in the early days, and before as much advance had 

 been made in the business as there is at present. 



Mr. Hart : It may be that while it seemed cold it was not 

 cold enough. One of the most important things about cold 

 storage houses is not the ice nor mechanical refrigeration, but 

 it is one of the things which we do not see when we go in, 

 and that is the insulation ; making the walls perfect non-con- 

 ductors. It is a difficult thing to perfectly insulate any building 

 for cold storage. Many of them have failed for that reason. 

 The insulation was not perfect. While they get a low tempera- 

 ture, yet it would be a temperature of from 35 to 38 degrees 

 when perhaps it should have been as low as 32 or 33. I think 

 if you were to know about the construction of this house here 

 in Hartford you probably would find that they had buried at 

 least $50,000 simply in the insulation of those walls. That is 

 something which you do not see at all. 



Mr. Fenn : A friend of mine who has constructed a small 

 cold storage plant put in I don't know how many loads of 

 cork in order to get proper insulation. In his plant I know 

 there is a double thickness with paper between, and paper on 

 both sides. This is an expensive thing to do. He told me 

 that he had spent $5,000 in there, and the room was not half 

 as large as this hall. He had the building and this was simply 

 in preparation for making a thorough cold storage department. 

 That is one of the problems of the cold storage business, and 

 it is certainly a very expensive one. 



The President : I think it would be well to hear what Prof. 

 Powell has to say at this time a1)out any facts which have 

 been brought out during the experiments with cold storage 

 which have been conducted by the U. S. Agricultural Depart- 

 ment. 



