264 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



changing it when the wrappers get moist. It is true that this makes a 

 great deal of labor, wrapping and unwrapping each pear, but I think myself 

 well paid for the trouble. 



Mr. R. G. Pardee said that whether anything was used or not for packing 

 fruit, it would not retain its odor and flavor iu some cellars. There is 

 something in the eondition of the soil or air that extracts the most valuable 

 qualities of the finest fruit. It is also often injured by being packed in 

 unsweet barrels. Pears may be advantageously mixed with high flavored 

 apples, some of which impart a delicious odor to the pears when packed 

 together. With bad packing, the most odorous apples lose much of their 

 value. In a musty cask, the Spitzbergen apple will acquire a tainted odor 

 that is disagreeable. 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter. — I tried packing in oat chafi" as an experiment. 

 I have also used nice sweet ha}', cut fine, which is an excellent plan; but 

 I am satisfied that rice hulls, where they can be obtained, would be prefer- 

 able to any other material. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — The most important matter in preserving fruit; is 

 to see that it undergoes the natural sweating process before it is finally 

 packed for winter. I think this is one of the principal reasons of Mr. Car- 

 penter's success. He piles his fruit on straw and covers it with straw, and 

 there it parts with its moisture before it is packed in the barrels. If nothing 

 was put with it, it would probably keep just as well, if the room was suffi- 

 ciently cool. 



Mr. Steele. — I wa^ not in the room when the letter relating to the plum 

 was read. I understood there was something said in relation to the cur 

 culio; some years since ray plum trees were very much affected by this 

 insect. I found by using the whale oil soap, diluted in water, that I saved 

 all my plums. I used a syringe, and applied this liquid four or five times 

 during the season, after the plums were set. 



Mr. Carpenter. — Fruit is very apt to taste musty if placed in old cellars, 

 or put into old barrels. 



Mr. Pardee. — I think the cellar should be dry and well ventilated. 



Monmouth Pippin. 



Mr. Steele exhibited a new apple called the Monmouth Pippin. This 

 apple originated in Monmouth county, N. J. It was pronounced a good 

 apple, and well worthy of cultivation. 



The subject of the day, " Pruning — Management of Grape Vines," was 

 called up 



Mr. A. S. Fuller. — The importance of this subject of pruning has never 

 been, nor do I think ever will be, over-estimated. The difference between 

 the properly cultivated and pruned plant, and the one that is not, is as 

 great as between the man who is entirely without education and the one 

 who is thoroughly enlightened. The first is the wild savage of the forest — 

 the latter the master of arts and sciences. 



The cultivated vine must be pruned and properly trained, or the best 

 results will not be obtained, and often total failures will follow, as well 

 from the half pruning as the no pruning system. With cultivated fruits 

 we should not try to follow nature, but to improve it; and there is not a 



