Preserving the Peach. 203 



he has been so ready to condemn. The French do not seal the 

 bottles at all, nor have they ever done so, but simply do as I have 

 described. 



PRESERVING THE PEACH IN A FRESH STATE AFTER IT is RIPE. 

 It is at the latest moment that I add this paragraph, and do it 

 with some reluctance, not having seen the experiment to which it 

 refers carried out, nor indeed had any means of inquiring fully into 

 the matter. At first I thought it better to have the matter care- 

 fully tested by several people next autumn -before speaking of itj 

 but here it is, and the reader can take it for what it is worth. The 

 greater number of trials made with it, the more likely are we to 

 quickly know its value. Travelling one day by the Lyons rail- 

 way from Paris, a French gentleman who had been shooting 

 entered the carriage with his gun and game-bag, and we soon 

 entered into conversation about the country, especially agriculture 

 and horticulture, and finally chanced to speak of the method of 

 preserving grapes above described a method which he was well 

 acquainted with and quite approved of. He then told me of a new 

 method of preserving the peach in a fresh condition a considerable 

 time after it was ripe, and that it simply consisted of packing the 

 fruit, gathered while ripe before being quite soft, in bran in rough 

 boxes, and placing them in cellar, store-room, or any similar place. 

 He stated that by this means peaches had been preserved in a per- 

 fectly fresh and well-flavoured condition many weeks after the 

 latest peaches had been gathered from the trees, and also that some 

 which had been presented to the Emperor some time about Christ- 

 mas were mistaken by him for early forced fruit. The train 

 stopped again, and my informant bade me good day before I had 

 time to ask him for fuller information as to the extreme time which 

 the fruit had kept well, and other points. That is all I know about the 

 matter. Possibly he may have been misinformed or misled, but he 

 spoke quite confidently of the method, and as if quite familiar with 

 it. As prolonging the season of the peach would be a great gain, 

 the mode is worthy of a trial, which should be made with the fruit 



