ELEJ'EXTH ANXUAL MEETING. 125 



Now I have some pictures here which illustrate what I am 

 trying to explain. These pictures are all hand-painted, and 

 show the condition under which a great deal of this fruit went 

 in. These paintings will give you a little idea. Now the 

 trouble with this pear has been that it turned brown at the 

 core, while the fruit has remained yellow on the outside. As 

 you will observe from this picture, there is a beautiful yellow 

 pear on the outside and all brown at the core. There is a pic- 

 ture showing the fruit as yellow on the outside and all discolored 

 inside. 



Now we found that the discoloration takes place from delay 

 in getting the fruit into storage after it is picked from the 

 tree, and we also found that in nine cases out of ten a tempera- 

 ture of 32 degrees is better than a temperature of 36 degrees. 

 There is a great necessity for handling the fruit just as soon 

 as you can after it is in the proper condition of ripeness. That 

 is one of the important conclusions which we came to; that 

 the fruit must be placed in cold storage at the proper time, 

 and as soon as possible after picking, and also that it wanted to 

 go in at a low temperature, even down as low as 31 to 32 

 degrees. All our experiments showed that it should go into 

 a temperature down as low as 31 to 32 degrees. At that tem- 

 perature you can hold this pear right over into the next summer, 

 provided the fruit is in proper condition when it goes in. That 

 is, you must be careful to put in only perfect fruit. Imperfect 

 fruit will not keep in storage. 



A Member : Has anything been done by the Government 

 on Bartlett pears? 



Prof. Powell: We have not taken up the Bartlett pear yet 

 for an experiment, but we are going to take up that variety 

 this year. Qur funds were so small that we were able to take 

 up only two or three varieties at present. 



N^ow I want to run over just a little of what we are doing 

 in apples. We went out into Missouri and Arkansas and we 

 took two pickings of apples, just as we had of the pears, one 

 when the fruit was firm and hard and in the condition that Mr. 

 Hart has described. We stored a part of that immediately, and 

 we let a part of it stand on the ground for two weeks and then 

 we put it in at 32 and 36. 



