THE FRUIT-ROOM. 



491 



mend fruit being stored away in a cool, 

 damp place ; certainly it ought to be free 

 from all noxious smell or disagreeable 

 vapour." He also approves of the room 

 being kept dark, and ventilation only 

 given in cool windy days, " when occa- 

 sionally all the doors and windows may 

 be opened for a short time, merely to 

 sweeten the air inside the house, by carry- 

 ing the rank or stagnant air out of it — an 

 operation only required occasionally." 



By microscopic examination it will be 

 found that the decay of fruit is often 

 caused, and rapidly increased, by minute 

 fungi, and that when the spawn of these 

 fungi is once generated in a fruit-room, it 

 spreads over the whole contents like a 

 contagious disease. The seed, or spores, 

 like those of all cryptogamic plants, are 

 far too minute to be distinguished by the 

 naked eye ; they, however, float in the 

 atmosphere in innumerable quantities, 

 and, in places congenial to their existence, 

 their presence is more readily discovered 

 by the sense of smell than by that of 

 sight. They appear to float about like 

 the motes in the sun's beams, until they 

 find a favourable place of settlement, or 

 they may possibly be attracted to it by 

 some cause entirely beyond our concep- 

 tion. The nidus on which they establish 

 themselves is those parts of fruits which 

 have been torn, cut, or scratched ; there 

 they insinuate themselves, and fructify 

 amazingly. They are doubtless able also 

 to introduce their microscopical spawn 

 through the pores of even entire skinned 

 fruits, and although with less activity, yet 

 with equal certainty, they will soon cause 

 their decay. This shows us the great 

 necessity of removing every separate fruit 

 the moment it exhibits symptoms of de- 

 cay ; for, as soon as that is apparent, the 

 seeds or spores of the fungus are perfected, 

 and ready to be wafted in the air of the 

 house to every part of it, and so increase 

 the contamination; for every speck of 

 decay, however small it may appear to 

 our vision, contains myriads of seeds, 

 each capable of producing the very same 

 effect when placed on a proper nidus, and 

 under those circumstances most favour- 

 able for its reproduction. 



No doubt there is a period of existence 

 to which every kind of fruit, as well as 

 every living thing, is limited. Natural 

 decay, therefore, will at the end of these 



periods take place without the agency of 

 fungi ; and beyond this period all the art 

 of man cannot extend it, so long as it is 

 kept in its natural state and form. But, 

 as Dr Lindley has observed, " it is one 

 thing for the texture of a fruit to be 

 destroyed by the ordinary agencies of 

 decomposition at its natural period, and 

 another for the action of those agencies 

 to be brought on long before the neces- 

 sary term of existence has been run out 

 — by the ravages of parasites, the removal 

 of which is to a considerable extent 

 within our power." Hot lime is a great 

 enemy to all the fungus tribe j and hence 

 it may be used in fruit-rooms, not only 

 for the purpose of preventing their appear- 

 ance, but also, to a certain extent, de- 

 stroying those that may have already 

 taken possession of it. Its known pro- 

 perties of abstracting moisture are so great 

 that a bushel of unslacked lime has been 

 calculated to absorb five gallons of water. 

 The best mode of applying it is to place 

 pieces of it in an unslacked state in shal- 

 low pans distributed about the house. 



The method of preserving fruits prac- 

 tised by M. Deslongchamps, and an- 

 nounced in the "Memorial Encyclope- 

 dique," consists in having recourse to 

 artificial cold to retard their ripening, and 

 so placing them in a stationary condition 

 until he wished them to be brought to 

 maturity at a late period of the season. 

 The principle of his plan is to keep them 

 free from moisture, and in a low tem- 

 perature, as little above the freezing-point 

 as possible. With this view he had zinc 

 boxes made, 1 foot deep and 6 inches 

 broad, with a detached lid of the same 

 material, with a projecting rim. In these 

 boxes he packed his finer pears, each 

 enveloped in fine paper, and over that 

 another covering of coarser paper. When 

 the boxes were filled, he sealed them her- 

 metically by pasting thick paper round 

 the edge of the box and lid, packed them 

 in wooden cases, and set these on the top 

 of the ice in his ice-house. A dry me- 

 dium around the fruit and a low tem- 

 perature was thus obtained. A somewhat 

 similar mode was practised by Columella 

 for preserving grapes : they were packed 

 in earthenware jars covered with lids, 

 which were luted round with clay; they 

 were next coated with pitch and sunk in 

 deep wells, where they were kept down by 



