PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 383 



After apples have undergone the sweating process, they may be 

 packed in tight barrels and transported two or three hundred 

 miles with perfect safety. But if left there, they will almost 

 invariably rot when the second sweating takes place. But if 

 opened, and spread, and dried, a second time, and repacked, they 

 may be shipped to Liverpool, and will keep sound. The period 

 of this sweating varies with the season and with the kind of 

 fruit, from three days to three weeks, and perhaps longer. This 

 is the great secret in keeping all kinds of fruit. In strawberries, 

 the sweating will take place in a few hours. If they are then 

 opened, exposed to the air, and thoroughly dried, they will bear 

 transportation better than if at once boxed up when picked. 



Mr. Smith, of Conn., stated that a neighbor of his put his 

 apples, when gathered, into barrels made perfectly tight, and they 

 will keep until July. For peaches, he was satisfied that air was 

 necessary. 



Mr. Carpenter. — It may answer for winter apples, but summer 

 or early fall apples, if put away in air-tight barrels, will rot. 



Mr. Pardee. — The apples which are kept until July would 

 probably sweat sufficiently in the few days which might elapse 

 before putting the heads in. He had found that by picking his 

 strawberries between 3 and 4^ o'clock in the afternoon upon 

 a dry day, placing them in common house bowls and covering 

 them with strawberry leaves, as soon as the dew began to fall, he 

 could carry them twenty-three miles to Rochester the next morn- 

 ing, and they would be as bright as the strawberries picked there 

 that morning. Take the best barrel of apples you can find, 

 and put a decayed one in the centre, and they will not keep a 

 week. 



Mr. Carpenter said that the sweating is an evaporation from 

 the fruit in the curing process, and differs from the condensation 

 of moisture upon fruit brought in a warm room in cold weather. 

 The latter may occur frequently, and will do no harm unless it 

 is allowed to remain upon the fruit. 



Mr. Gale would attribute the decay of fruit to the state of the 

 atmosphere, rather than to air-tight barrels, or to open barrels. 

 If apples are taken from the tree early in the fall, and placed at 

 once in air-tight barrels, they will be endangered if left until 

 February even. Russets can be kept until July in the open air. 



Mr. Lawton attributed the second sweating to the rising of 



