The Canadian Horticulturist. 23 



WINTERINC; MAPLES. 



N abundance of fruit this season has caused prices to be extremely 

 low, so much so that in many sections farmers declare that ap- 

 ples are not worth gathering. In many parts of the country six 

 cents per bushel are only offered at the cider mills or distilleries. 

 Of course this price refers to windfalls and fruit that insects have 

 caused to drop, but it is much better to haul them away and dispose of them 

 even at such low prices, for the number of bushels that could be picked up in a 

 day in an orchard would be sufficient to make the occupation pay quite well. 

 Aside from this, removing the fruit gets rid of the insects they would produce 

 another season. The low prices should stimulate farmers to store choice fruit 

 awayi n as careful a manner as possible ; as better prices may be realized in the 

 winter or the spring. The following hints and suggestions from Stuarfs Agri- 

 culturist on keeping fruit all the year round are of special interest just now : 



" The comfort of a supply of apples the year round depends as much upon 

 the keeping as the growing of them. The average house cellar is not the best 

 place in which to store them, but attention to cleanliness, ventilation and tem- 

 perature guided by a thermometer, will make it a fair success. Temperature is 

 the strong point, and the nearer and more uniformly the air of any room in 

 which apples are stored can be kept to the freezing point, but always above it, 

 the longer and better they will keep. Carefully picked and assorted apples, 

 packed in boxes or barrels in almost any fine, dry material that will aid in keep, 

 ing them dry and the temperature about them uniform, may be kept in any 

 convenient outhouse, or even the barn, covered with three or four feet of hay, 

 straw, leaves, chaff or other material, to keep the frost from reaching them. All 

 the better if they can stand upon the ground, which will aid in maintaining an 

 unchanging temperature. To those who have heretofore kept their apples in 

 bins or on shelves in the house cellar without satisfactory success we suggest the 

 following experiments, which have before appeared in print : Select fifty good 

 sound apples from the shelf or exposed mass, wrap each in paper and replace 

 them. Count out fifty more, the same in condition, and place them aside 

 exposed. Place successive lots of fifty equal specimens in boxes of suitable 

 size and pack in each the following, viz. : fine shavings, fine chopped oat straw, 

 coarse and fine chaff, bran, sifted coal ashes and plaster ; put them in a cold, 

 not freezing, apartment. Fill boxes large enough to hold half a bushel or a 

 bushel, with apples in the more compact packing, as plaster or fine chaff, and 

 place them in the barn, with a few feet of hay or a foot or two of chaff upon 

 them. Leave them all undisturbed until after those kept in the usual way are 

 gone and you get hungry for apples ; then examine them all at the same time 

 carefully, bearing in mind the differing conditions under which each lot has 

 been kept and you will get a deal of information. — Husbandman. 



