THE FRUIT-ROOM. 



487 



fruit-rooms, for these, in general, are only 

 dry cellars; the greater care taken in 

 their management is the principal cause 

 of it all. No doubt, however, the climate 

 of France, Belgium, and the south of Ger- 

 many, is better adapted for the produc- 

 tion of fine fruit of certain kinds than 

 ours, on account of the greater warmth 

 of their summers, and the greater amount 

 of solar influence they enjoy. 



Little information has been given us by 

 horticultural writers upon the construc- 

 tion of fruit-rooms, or the preservation of 

 fruit : although most of them have given 

 us their practice, but few of them have 

 detailed the reasons for it. The late 

 Thomas Andrew Knight was amongst the 

 first who took up this matter ; and his 

 valuable papers in the "Transactions 

 of the Horticultural Society" undoubt- 

 edly laid the foundation of all hitherto 

 attained on the subject. The most valu- 

 able information that has as yet been 

 published on the subject will be found in 

 the early numbers of "The Gardeners' 

 Chronicle," and is based upon the experi- 

 ments made by Mr Thompson in the 

 gardens of the Horticultural Society of 

 London. Although we differ from that 

 high authority in some minor points, yet, 

 as a whole, his experience is far too valu- 

 able not to find a place in a work of this 

 kind. The following excellent remarks 

 on the principles that ought to guide the 

 designer, in the building and arrangement 

 of a fruit-room, are from the work men- 

 tioned above : " Darkness, a low steady 

 temperature, dryness, and exclusion of 

 atmospheric air, are the great points to 

 secure." The term dryness here, we 

 think, should be taken with some qualifi- 

 cation, as apples are found to keep in a 

 rather damp atmosphere. Regarding the 

 exclusion of light, the above authority 

 very sensibly remarks : " If the light of 

 the sun strikes upon a plant, the latter 

 immediately parts with its moisture by 

 perspiration ; and it does so in proportion 

 to the force exercised upon it by the sun, 

 and independent of temperature. The 

 greatest amount of perspiration takes 

 place beneath the direct rays of the sun, 

 and the smallest in those places which 

 daylight reaches with most difficulty. 

 Now the surface of a fruit perspires like 

 that of a leaf, although not to the same 

 amount. When a leaf perspires while 



growing on a tree, it is immediately sup- 

 plied with more water by the stem, and 

 thus is enabled to bear the loss produced 

 by light striking on its surface ; but 

 when a leaf is plucked it withers, because 

 there is no longer a source of supply for 

 it. So it is with a fruit : while growing 

 on the tree, it is perpetually supplied by 

 the stem with water enough to replace 

 that which is all day long flying off from 

 its surface ; but as soon as it is gathered, 

 that source of supply is removed, and 

 then, if the light strikes it ever so feebly, 

 it loses weight without being able to re- 

 place its loss. It is thus that fruit be- 

 comes shrivelled and withered prema- 

 turely. Light should, then, have no 

 access to a good fruit-room." Some qua- 

 lification, however, is necessary on this 

 point, for it is well known that, if fruit 

 be gathered before it is fully matured, it 

 will shrivel, let it be placed in whatever 

 position as regards light it may; and 

 hence gathering fruit too early should be 

 avoided. We grant, however, that light 

 brings about this shrivelling sooner, in 

 immaturely ripened fruit, than darkness 

 would do ; but, nevertheless, unripened 

 fruit cannot be prevented from shrivel- 

 ling, place it where we may. 



Regarding temperature, " it should be 

 low and uniform. If it is high — that is 

 to say, much above 40° — the juices of the 

 fruit will have a tendency to decompose, 

 and thus decay will be accelerated ; if, on 

 the contrary, it is below 32°, decomposi- 

 tion of another kind is produced in conse- 

 quence of the chemical action of freezing." 

 Here, we think, the statement is slightly 

 defective, for it is quite well known that 

 apples, in Canada and other cold coun- 

 tries — nay, not ^infrequently in our own 

 ■ — are often frozen quite hard ; but in 

 consequence of that process taking place 

 in the dark, and the counter process of 

 thawing also, without the influence of 

 light, that chemical change does not take 

 place which otherwise would if the freez- 

 ing and thawing went on in the light, or 

 even if frozen apples were brought out of 

 the dark into the light to thaw. The 

 potato is another example of this fact. 

 Potatoes planted in autumn, as well as 

 those left in the ground, and so far 

 covered as to be beyond the range of 

 light, are not injured by frost, although 

 they may have been several times as hard 



