OcL] 



THE FRUIT GARDEN. 



439 



preferred to hampers, and the closer that they are made the 

 better to exclude air, the better will the fruit keep. They 

 should not be examined until they have been a considerable 

 time in the boxes ; this must be determined upon according to 

 the nature of the fruit, whether it be a good keeping sort or 

 not. For the finer kinds of apples and pears, more care should 

 be taken of them, as their quantity will not be so great. Mr. 

 Knight has, in one of his valuable papers, given the following 

 as the most successful mode of keeping the finer apples and 

 pears : The most successful method of preserving apples and 

 pears which," he says, " I have tried, has been placing them 

 in glazed earthen vessels, each containing about a gallon, 

 (called provincially steens,) and surrounding each fruit with 

 paper : but it is probable that the chaft' of oats, if free from 

 moistm'e, or any offensive smell, might be used with advantage 

 instead of paper, and with much less expense or trouble. 

 These vessels, being perfect cylinders about a foot each in 

 height, stand very conveniently on each other, and thus present 

 the means of preserving a large quantity of fruit in a small 

 room ; and if the spaces between the top of one vessel and the 

 base of another be filled with a cement, composed of two parts 

 of the curd of skimmed milk and one of lime, by which the 

 air will be excluded, the latter kinds of apples and pears will 

 be preserved with little change in their appearance, and with- 

 out any danger of decay, from October till February and 

 March. A dry and cold situation, in which there is little 

 change of temperature, is the best for the vessels ; but I have 

 found the merits of pears to be greatly increased, by their being 

 taken from the vessels about ten days before they are wanted 

 for use, and being kept in a warm room, for warmth at this, 

 as at all other periods, accelerates the maturity of the pear. 

 The same agent accelerates its decay also ; and a warmer climate 

 contributes to the superior success of the French gardeners, 

 which probably arises only from the circumstance of their fruit 

 being the produce of standard or espalier-trees." 



The above is the rationale of Mr. Knight's practice, and 

 exactly agrees in principle with our own, which we have adopted 

 for several years ; the only difierence is, that we have kept our 

 fruit in strong boxes filled with dry sharp sand, in which the 



