1 30 Thinning y Gathering, Keeping, and Marketing. 



closed. By replenishing the cold air from without when required, 

 the temperature is kept within two or three degrees of freezing 

 through winter and spring as long as cool nights continue. 



Large, two-story houses may be built for holding several thou- 

 sand bushels, the second floor being made of slats to admit the air 

 from below. The low temperature is more completely preserved 

 by closing and packing the windows and doors as soon as the house 

 is filled with fruit, and entering at the top, by means of outside 

 stairs and a passage through the attic. These stairs are enclosed 

 from the weather. A thermometer set in a niche in the lower end 

 of a sliding-rod passing through the upper floor, enables the attend- 

 ant to ascertain the temperature without entering and disturbing 

 the air in the fruit-room below. 



The air of the room may be partly cooled during the warm 

 weather of summer by opening the ventilator and registers and ad- 

 mitting the earth-cooled air from the space beneath the lower floor. 

 If large quantities of fruit are to be stored, the floors must be well 

 strengthened with posts and piers. The air in well constructed 

 houses on the cold-air principle has been kept for five months, 

 through winter, within three degrees of freezing. 



One of the most convenient modes for gathering, storing, and 

 keeping apples for home consumption, is in flat boxes. These are 



Fig. ijort. Piling Fruit Boxes. 



filled directly from the trees in the orchard, and they may be at 

 once conveyed to an out-building, or piled up in a sheltered place 

 in the orchard in the way shown in Fig. 1700. This mode admits 

 the free circulation of air, and they may be protected from the 



weather with a board cover. As 

 winter approaches, they are con- 

 veyed to the cellar or fruit-room 

 without disturbing their con- 

 tents. Or if they are to be re- 

 ceived in a cold fruit-house, the 



Fig. ^ob.-Storing Fruit Boxes. fresh fruit ma y be at OnCC COn - 



veyed to it. 



When packed away for winter, the boxes may be disposed of as 

 shown in Fig. .170^, and when they are examined for the removal 



