No. 129.] 425 



preserved in an ice house, keep its beautiful appearance, but it 

 had become ■worthless. Apples keep tolerably well in burned 

 ground plaster of paris. One rule is held — that of keeping the 

 fruit cool and from light. Professor Duval relates that when he 

 had a new fruit, he called his friends to taste it — it was a pear — he 

 could not find it ! Two years afterwards he called his friends 

 again to judge it. for he had found it, and in an apparent sound 

 state; but behold, it was now rotten in two days. Its preserva- 

 tion so long must, I think, be chiefly due to the absence of light. 

 Mr. Curtiss, of Boston, has made a discovery in the fresh preser- 

 vation of fruit. He has sent them sound to California and to 

 London. As to the expense of these operations I am not inform- 

 ed. In the ripening of oui* New-England fruits, we want another 

 fortnight of summer. Our Easter Beurre pear has kept well. 

 As to the preservation of our own native grapes in a fresh state, 

 I deem it to be of very great importance, considering their present 

 good quality, and looking to the future vast amelioration in qual- 

 ity and universal cultivation of them. We desire cheap methods 

 of keeping them as nearly as we can to the coming crops, as we 

 now do apples. Mr. Longworth, of Cincinnati, Ohio, writes to 

 me that he makes- this year upwards of two hundred thousand 

 bottles of wine, equal in quality to any other vintage. The first 

 taste of Catawba wine is not pleasant, but rapidly improves on 

 the palate. We have now acquired a delicious nt \t grape, called 

 Diana, the name of the lady who first brought it i::to notice. It 

 is about a fortnight earlier than the Isabella. On my place I 

 have not had Catawba ripen properly in fifteen years, until this 

 last fall. The Diana grape is small, cluster very compact. My 

 frien;!, Mr. Ritchie, of California, writes to me that clusters of 

 the grape there are some of them of the weight of ten pounds. 

 There is no difiiculty there — it is a wine country, and we should 

 have the wines from there before long. We deem a cluster of 

 grapes weighing six or seven pounds quite a large one grown 

 here. As to the keeping of fruit Curtiss' method is not made 

 public. With regard to our apples and pears, it is a great treat 

 to have them through the winter in all their freshness — to cut 

 up for your party, late in the winter, a couple of dozen of your 

 best pears is delicious. We are trying experiments in preserva- 



