310 [Assembly 



ton remarked, that as tbey had continued to ship them for the 

 last ten or fifteen years, he presumed it had proved a source of 

 profit. He had also heard that apples shipped on several differ- 

 ent occasions arrived in good condition. An evidence of the re- 

 sult, however, was to be found in the fact that after they had 

 been shipped for ten years, he had known the shippers to pay $3 

 pel- barrel for all the apples picked from the tree, large and small, 

 and the purchaser to assort and pack them. This would not have 

 been done if the operation had been attended with much risk. 

 Sometimes they had been sent without rolling in papers. He 

 could not tell whether they arrived in as good condition when 

 sent as far as Calcutta as when sent to a nearer port, but under- 

 stood that the investment paid well. The shipment of the apples 

 was only secondary to the ice business. The ships in which they 

 were transported have a false lining throughout, inclosing a quan- 

 tity of tan, sawdust, or pulverized peat. He had never seen a 

 ship lined, but thought that peat mud which had been exposed to 

 the action of a winter's frosts, after being thrown out, was consi- 

 dered as good as anything for filling the walls of an ice house. 

 The buildings constructed for this purpose are double-boarded on 

 lill sides, leaving a space of about 16 inches, which is filled with 

 the pulverized peat, rammed close. 



In some of the ports, houses are constructed for storing the ice 

 on its arrival ; in others, the Dr. understands that the vessel is 

 detained until the ice and apples are sold. In these experiments, 

 as in most others for the preservation of fruits and vegetables by 

 ©old, they decay rapidly when taken from the ice. 



Dr. Wellington related a few other facts with regard to the 

 preservation of fruit. The autumn of 1835 was remarkably mild 

 and open, and there was a large fall of snow the last week of 

 November, before the ground froze. In different parts of his fa- 

 ther's orchard, apples which had fallen to the ground and were 

 covered with the snow, remained in a perfect state of preserva- 

 tion. 



A neighbor of his father had a large pile of apples covered by 

 this same fall of snow. In the autumn these had no value but 



