413 [Assembly 



all picked by hand, by men from ladders, into half-bushel bask- 

 ets, from them into bushel and a half baskets, in which tliey are 

 carried in spring wagons, twelve at a time, to store rooms, covered 

 with straw, where they are carefully piled, 3 feet thick, to sweat 

 and discharge by ft-rmentation, some 30 per cent, of water, when 

 they are ready for barreling for shipment to Europe or elsewhere. 

 If they reach their port of destination before the second process of 

 sweating comes on they will keep perfectly four months. I have 

 kept them sound two years, and exhibited them at the end of 

 that time at the Institute Fair, Castle Garden. They have been 

 sent to Europe and China from my farm, packed in various ways, 

 viz : in wheat chaff, buckwheat chaff, oats, rye, mahogany saw 

 dust, cork dust, wrapped separately in paper, and in ice. By 

 the mode I now adopt, I can warrant them to bear shipment su- 

 perior to any other, except ice. Some kinds of apples are gath- 

 ered from the trees before they are quite ripe, and the ripening is 

 completed in the fruit room ; this is generally called the matura- 

 tion of fruit. 



Monsieur Couverchel in the " Annals de Chimie," appears to 

 have examined this subject pretty thoroughly, and conceived 

 that the acid and mucilaginous matters of fruit almost ripe, are 

 converted into sugar by a chemical process, which he calls the 

 saccharine fermentation. Had such fruit remained on the tree 

 until it was ripe, this fermentation would have passed into the 

 putrefactive stage Apples and pears intended for the fruit room 

 for winter''s consumption, might always be plucked six or seven 

 days before ripe, to mature in the room, which should be per- 

 fectly dry, airy, free from frost, and the immediate effects of the 

 sun ; in this room the fruit should be kept separate and not 

 allowed to touch each other. Pears picked six days before ripe, 

 and packed in kiln dried sand, stowed in such a room, will keep 

 all winter. Apples may be preserved remarkably well in pits, 

 made in sandy ground ; sufficiently large to contain six bushels. 

 The pits should be lined with fresh rye straw, and covered with 

 earth sufficient to keep out the frost. The principle of life ap- 

 pears to remain in fruit somewhat differently than in animals ; 

 for instance, I have on several occasions cut a branch from an 

 apple tree, and planted it, when instead of dying, it has blossom- 

 ed the same season simultaneously with the mother tree, and in 



