CHAPTER XII. 



Methods of Keeping and Storing Fruits and 

 Vegetables. 



Apples. — 



1. Keep the fruit as cool as possible without freezing. 

 Select only normal fruit, and place it upon trays in a moist 

 but well ventilated cellar. If it is desired to keep the fruit 

 particularly nice, allow no fruits to touch each other upon 

 the trays, and the individual fruits may be wrapped in tissue 

 paper. For market purposes, pack tightly in barrels, and 

 store the barrels in a very cool place. 



2. Some solid apples, like Spitzenberg, are not injured by 

 hard freezing, if they are allowed to remain frozen until 

 wanted and are then thawed out very gradually. 



3. Many apples, particularly russets and other firm varie- 

 ties, keep well when buried after the manner of pitting pota- 

 toes. Sometimes, however, they taste of the earth. This 

 may be prevented by setting a ridge-pole over the pile of 

 apples in forked sticks, and making a roof of boards in such 

 a manner that there will be an air-space over the fruit. 

 Then cover the boards with straw and earth. Apples seldom 

 keep well after removal from a pit in spring. 



4. Apples may be kept by burying in chaff. Spread chaff 

 — buckwheat-chaff is good — on the barn-floor, pile on the 

 apples and cover them with chaff and fine broken or chopped 

 straw two feet thick, exercising care to fill the interstices. 



Pears. — Pears should be picked several days or a couple of weeks 

 before they are ripe, and then placed in a dry and well-ven- 

 tilated room, like a chamber. Make very shallow piles, or 

 better, place on trays. 



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