IXSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE CEAXBERRY. 



127 



half. The other half, where the sun did not reach, 

 were left sound. Good sound berries, picked and left 

 standing in the sun, in a box or barrel, on hot days will 

 soften upon the top. The sun's rays shining through a 

 window on berries stored in a building, will sof fcen them 

 wherever the direct rays fall upon them at mid-day, or if 

 the thermometer reaches seventy-five in the shade at the 

 time, they will become soft. 



^^The evidence is positive that berries exposed to the 

 sun's rays, at the time the temperature is at eighty or 

 more in the shade, will be softened ; that is, if they are 

 picked. But if the vines are suffering from drouth, and 

 fail to supply the fruit hanging upon them with mois- 

 ture, is not the effect in cutting short the supply the 

 same as if we pick the berries ? It is evident that, at 

 high temperatures, the fruit evaporates water from its 

 skin, and this, carrying off caloric in a latent form, keeps 

 the internal structure cool, and so prevents the disor- 

 ganization of its parts. It is evident also, that moist 

 surfaces of ground must be cooler than dry ones, and 

 the berries growing upon them will be at a lower tem- 

 perature from the evaporation of its moisture. 

 . ^^Let us suppose a bog with frequent ditches, and the 

 water kept at a uniform depth from the surface in every 

 part, and a ' Scald ' comes on ; the fruit on some parts 

 of it may be softened, and on others not. I have ex- 

 amined the sub-soil in places where the fruit was soft- 

 ened, and it was coarse gravel, for this or some other 

 reason, it was unable to raise the moisture to the sur- 

 face by capillary attraction, and had acquired a higher 

 temperature at the surface where the soft berries were 

 than elsewhere. 



^ I have seen the berries soften on surfaces black with 

 shallow layers of muck, while a few feet from, them, on a 

 surface of white sand, berries nescaped, the sub-soil being 

 the same in both places. A thermometer placed among 



