WINTER STORING OF TREES. 



145 



A cellar a hundred feet long, twenty feet wide, and ten feet 

 high in the clear, will winter about 25,000 three-year-old 

 apple trees, if the trees are corded, as already described. 

 These storage cellars soon engender mold or fungus if 

 they are allowed to become too warm or too close. Cel- 

 lars with floors as high as the surface of the ground keep 

 "sweeter" than those which are sunken. The remedy for 

 this fungus, which often does great damage to stock, is to 

 keep the house well aired, and then to kill it out by fumi- 

 gating. A common practice is to burn shavings or sawdust 

 in the cellar, and then open the doors and windows and air 

 the place. If the smudge is dense, the fungus is said to be 

 easily destroj-ed. Evaporating sulphur — not burning it — 

 upon an oil stove is also effective. Place the sulphur in a 



143. storage cellar. 



pan and set tliis pan in another of about t]]e same size, in the 

 bottom of which is a layer of sand a half inch thick. Place 

 botli of them upon the stove, and allow the sulphur to melt 

 and evaporate, filling the house with the fumes. The layer 

 of sand will prevent the sulphur from catching fire, unless it 

 is allowed to run over. Burning sulphur quickly kills all 

 plants which are in active growth. Its action upon dormant 

 nursery stock is unknown to the writer. A low temperature 

 and an abundance of fresh air, however, are the best safe- 

 guards against fungus. They are also essential to the pre- 

 servation of the bright, vivid color of the stock. Trees 

 which are wintered in close and warm cellars look dull in 

 the spring. The temperature should be kept as near freez- 



