PYRUS, PEAR TREE. 253 



USES. 



Pears that are fresh, cooked without sugar & in compotes, can be eaten all year 

 long. Some are extremely good oven-dried. None of them are suitable for either dry or 

 liquid preserves except the Rousselet de Reims pear, which makes very good dried 

 preserves & delicious marmalade. It's also preserved as a brandy like many other fruits. 



To keep winter pears for six weeks or two months beyond their normal term after 

 they've been picked, they have to be heaped on a table in a fruit loft & left there until 

 they're very moist, or in common terms, until they sweat. That happens sooner or later 

 (sometimes in twenty-four hours) depending on the ambient temperature. They're then 

 dried off well with a cloth (some prefer serge) & lined up next to one another in the 

 sunshine, or where the air is dry. When very dry they're wrapped up individually in paper 

 & stored in cupboards or drawers that are well protected from frost & dampness. Cared 

 for in this way, the life of S. Germain pears can be prolonged until the end of April & that 

 of other late pears proportionately. The same will be true for apples. 



These fruits also can be kept very well in ashes, & this is a common practice. In 

 boxes, barrels, or even in a corner formed by two walls of the fruit loft or any other place 

 that's well protected & inaccessible to frost & dampness, a three- or four-inch thick bed 

 of ashes is prepared, and the fruit is laid out on it and covered with a similar layer of 

 ashes. The latter is covered with fruit & covered again in the same way. The process is 

 continued as long as required by the amount of fruit & as space in the container permits. 



