86 PLARS WITH STEMS. 
higher prices with stems than without them. There- 
fore, in gathering or handling fruit, this fact should 
be taken into consideration. 
Fruit, as fast as gathered from the tree, should 
be placed in baskets by hand. If roughly handled, 
the fruit is bruised, and the bruised parts will rot 
instead of ripening ; this, as a matter of course, will 
materially injure the sale as well as the quality of 
the pears. If the fruit is to be sold, it should be 
assorted at the time of gathering—the large, me- 
dium, and small sized should be placed by them- 
selves, and immediately removed to the fruit room 
or detention house; the latter should be dry and of 
even temperature, not more than fifteen degrees 
above the freezing point. Such a room may be ar- 
ranged in the second story of an ice-house, with 
double doors, windows, sides and roof, the space be- 
tween need not be filled with charcoal, spent tan, or 
other materials, for if the parts are tight, it will be 
found that a space of confined air is the best non- 
conductor. 
Fruit taken off in the way described, will not 
shrink by the after evaporation of its moisture. Nor 
should it be left on the tree sufficiently long to per- 
mit any of the chemical changes constituting the 
ripening process, that do not require assistance from 
the functions of the tree itself. Most fruit when 
