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Chapter IX. 

 APPLE STORAGE ON THE PAEM. 



WM. K. COLE, EXTENSION SPECIALIST IN HOBTICULTtTRAL MANUPACTUBES, 

 MASSACHUSETTS AGBICULTUEAL COLLEGE. 



The problem of storage for the apple crop probably comes 

 at some time or other to every grower. There can be little 

 doubt that in some form storage is essential to successful or- 

 charding. Many should think of it for themselves on their 

 own farms, while others should look at the question as one of 

 co-operation and think of it in the form of a central storage 

 house for a group of growers. Some are apt to be satisfied 

 with the commercial warehouse, but very frequently the grower 

 in this latter class is at the mercy of the speculator. 



Common storage is a successful way to handle the crop of the 

 grower with an average acreage. This is the type which is 

 sometimes known as frostproof storage and can be very suc- 

 cessfully operated in Massachusetts. Much more can be e^c- 

 complished with this type of storage than is generally realized 

 if proper use be made of low night temperatures of the fall. 

 It is a good business proposition for our growers to own either 

 individually or collectively a common storage cellar. 



Of course it is necessary that those holding fruit be able to 

 wait for their money, which is one of the objections to storage. 



There is a good deal of misapprehension as to the function 

 of a storage house in the preservation of fruit. A fruit is a 

 living organism in which the life processes go forward slowly 

 in low temperatures, but do not cease in the lowest temper- 

 ature in which the fruit may be safely stored. When the 

 fruit actually reaches the end of its life it dies of old age. 

 The storage house is designed to arrest these ripening proc- 

 esses in a temperature that will not injure the fruit in other 

 respects, and thereby to prolong its life history. It follows 



