KEEPING PEARS IN A GREENHOUSE. 



59 



make them perfectly clean, if they have ever been 

 used. The best way is to half burn or bake them 

 over a<2;ain. 



" Gather your pears very carefully, so as not to rub 

 off the bloom or break the stalk. On no account 

 knock them about so as to bruise them. Put them 

 on a' dry sweet shelf, to sweat. When the sweating 

 is over, rub them dry with, a soft cloth, as tenderly as 

 if you were dry-rubbing a baby. 



" As soon as they are quite dry, put them, one over 

 the other, into the jars or garden pots, without any 

 sort of packing ; close up the mouth of the jar loosely, 

 or of the garden-pot, by whelming the pan or placing 

 a piece of slate over it, and stow them away in a dark- 

 ish closet where they cannot get the frost. 



" Open the jars now and then, to see how they are 

 getting on. 



" Do not put more than one sort in the same jar, if 

 you can help it. Mind — the warmer they are kept, 

 the faster they will ripen." 



KEEPING PEARS IE A GREENHOUSE. 



I have but very recently found that pears may be 

 kept in a greenhouse, in great perfection, all the 

 winter. 



The greenhouse in which,- my experiment has been 

 tried is a lean-to house with a S. "W. aspect, twelve feet 

 wide, with a path in the centre, a bench in front, of] 

 common slates laid on wooden bars, and a stage at 

 back, full of camellias. My pears have been laid on 

 the front bench, the glass over them shaded till the 

 end of November, the house ventilated, and the 



