INTRODUCTION. 7 



repeated four or five times, thoroughly wetting each time the inside of the cask and 

 the lid and allowing both to dry, absorbing as much as possible of the sake into the 

 wood. From all that I was able to learn from the Japanese experts, I believe that if 

 our growers desired to grow persimmons for market, the best way would be to make 

 casks, holding about one half barrel, from the wood of our southern cypress. Then 

 import first-class sake from Japan and use as above described. All with whom I 

 consulted agreed that success would be reasonably certain if the work was properly 

 done. 



A copy of this report was sent at once to Mr. Roeding, and in the 

 autumn of 1905 he made the first trial of what we termed the sake- 

 barrel method of treating the persimmon. The results of his experi- 

 ment were very encouraging, and on November 15, 1905, he sent the 

 writer a few treated fruits, writing as follows in regard to them: 



I am also sending you a few persimmons, which I have been experimenting with, 

 in accordance with the instructions given in Mr. Watrous's letter in his report to 

 the Hon. James Wilson. I secured a sake tub from which the liquor had just been 

 emptied and corked it up tight for 11 days, and opened it this morning. It is really 

 astonishing to see how completely the bitterness has left the persimmons, although 

 they are just as hard as the day they were put in. What I am interested to know now 

 is how they will carry, and I am therefore sending you this sample, and would be 

 pleased to have you give me your views. 



These fruits were submitted to Mr. W. A. Taylor and Col. Brackett, 

 of the Office of Pomological Investigations, and pronounced a success, 

 and it was not apparent that the processing had in the least injured 

 their shipping quality. At the writer's suggestion Mr. Roeding sent 

 a few days later a shipment to Mr. Watrous, upon whose report the 

 experiment was made. 



Fortunately at this time the whole subject of the ripening and 

 growth of persimmons was under investigation by Messrs. W. D. 

 Bigelow, H. C. Gore, and B. J. Howard, 1 of the Bureau of Chemistry, 

 and these investigators were immediately informed of the experiment 

 and shown the fruits. Appreciating the practical bearing which 

 the adoption of some simple method of processing persimmons would 

 have on the industry, experiments were then undertaken by the 

 Bureau of Chemistry and continued from season to season for four 

 years. This bulletin is the outcome of these investigations. It 

 represents the first logical constructive work on this important sub- 

 ject and lays the foundation for a rational method of processing the 

 oriental persimmon in such a way as to make it possible in the future 

 for the retail fruit dealer to offer for sale nonastringent persimmons 

 as hard as apples, which can be eaten at once without puckering one's 

 mouth. 



The researches of Mr. Howard 2 upon the localization of the 

 astringency of the persimmon on ripening brought out the very 

 interesting fact that the tannin of the fruit becomes localized in 



i J. Amer. Chem. Soc, 1906, 05:688. 



2 Tannin Cells of Persimmons, Bull. Torrey Botanical Club, 1906, 33: 567-576. 



