2 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ January 7, 1886. 
whose tangled skein we know nothing, and of whose bearing 
on our favourite calling we are equally ignorant. Whether 
we have bright skies or cloudy days, enter upon it with a 
good heart. I speak not now of higher and holier things, for 
I am not here to sermonise. Faint heart never won fair lady; 
and our fair Flora, though no way coy, likes her lovers to 
be bold and courageous. Make use of all the many advan¬ 
tages you possess. Let “Forward” be your motto; and 
to one and all let an “ old boy ” wish you a very happy 
and prosperous new year.—D., Deal. 
KEEPING APPLES. 
Before plunging into this question we may preface what has 
to be said thereupon with a few remarks on gathering the fruit. At 
the Edinburgh Congress in November the fact that large quantities of 
the fruit had been removed from the trees long before it had arrived 
at the stage when it was ready for gathering was most patent. Some 
collections were in almost every dish showing the unmistakeable 
symptoms of premature removal, and how the bulk from which these 
samples had been selected were to weather the succeeding four or five 
months during which Apples would be wanted was to us a question 
that admitted of no solution. From that it would appear that many 
of the Apples in the north are gathered before they are ready, and it 
would follow that many gardeners have not considered the matter as 
they ought. We have unfortunately been obliged to remove a large 
quantity of fruit from the trees before it was quite ready, and that on 
account of the multitude of “ songsters ’’ which have to be fed at the 
period the earlier of the main crop sorts are swelling off, hut the later 
kinds have been quite safe from the birds. There are some simple 
rules which have been laid down in order to help the inexperienced to 
judge as to the fitness of the fruit for removal, such for instance as 
the pips ripening and the ease with which the fruit parts from the 
tree on testing it ; but neither of these tests is infallible, and 
nothing is to be found to take the place of a tried judgment. If 
trees are heavily cropped, or if the soil is very dry, fruit will be easy 
to detach from the tree even before it is ready. 
The Apple, like other fruits, has its “ swelling ” stages, and it is 
very often during the period of its last swelling that much fruit is 
gathered. A good plan, in fact the only sensible plan in gardens, is 
to gather the largest of the fruit as it becomes fit, leaving the smaller 
and greener for a longer period until it also is fit to gather. We have 
often our best fruit, either as regards size or colour, from the fruit 
thus left. We have so large a quantity to gather that the rules laid 
down by some pomologists as to the handling of the fruit, such as 
laying it in single layers in wadded trays and careful removal on to 
shelves in the fruit room, are matters which we cannot compass ; nor 
is it at all necessary unless in the case of fruit selected for any special 
purpose. Large baskets with side handles are admirably fitted for 
carrying the fruit, and with ordinary care it receives no damage ; 
all fruit that is ready parts quite easily from the tree. It should be 
taken in the hand and bent backwards without twisting. If fruit 
requires to be twisted off it is better left on the tree until it will come 
off without it. 
Gardeners have to put up with such means as they have provided 
them to keep fruit. Some of these rough-and-ready buildings which 
we have seen are much better adapted for preserving fruit in good 
condition for a lengthened period than the most pretentious and ex¬ 
pensively fitted structures we have had the privilege of inspecting. 
The interior arrangement of an Apple room need be of only the 
simplest nature, room to walk and to work among the fruit and 
shelving to carry it is all that is required. The pathways should be 
wide enough to allow all the work required to be easily performed, 
and the shelves should be as wide as they can be conveniently 
managed, constructed of close boards, and with deep sides to keep 
the fruit in. In order to promote ease of access the tiers of shelving 
should not be too close together, and this is of the less consequence, 
as we have proved that Apples keep quite as well banked up in heaps 
as they do laid out singly. The only precautions necessary are to put 
in no damaged fruit, to gather and store in dry weather, and to wait 
until the fruit is ready before gathering it. During the time the 
storing of the fruit is progressing a current of air should be allowed 
to pass through the structure, and this should continue for a week or 
two after the shelves have been filled. The important feature to 
study after the fruit has been stored is to keep the room at an equal 
temperature, if possible not below 40° and not above 45°. A thatched 
and air-encased lean-to with a high wall on its south side, an outer 
and an inner door with a short entry between, and one solitary 
window which could be blocked up with straw and shuttered from 
the outside would please as perfectly for a fruit room ; as it is we 
have to go on with a very roughly fitted building, and in those points 
wherein it comes short of what we should wish it to be we endeavour 
to meet with such appliances as we can readily call into use. 
It is very generally supposed that Apples will not keep wed unless 
the storeroom in which they are placed is secluded from light , 
but we have repeatedly kept Apples in good condition as long as it 
was possible to keep them in a lighted apartment. The real benefit 
derived from the exclusion of light would appear to be that the air 
inside the building is kept at a more regular temperature by means ot 
shutters acting to some extent as non-conductors of either cold or 
heat. In changeable weather, such as recurring frosts with their 
accompanying thaws, we have stuffed the outside of the windows well 
up with straw, and in this way kept the fruit from such sudden and 
excessive changes of temperature as they would otherwise have had 
to experience. In long-continued severe frosts we cover all the fruit 
with layers of newspapers, which are in themselves a great help. We 
also keep a few petroleum lamps going, and on occasion made char¬ 
coal red hot and shut it up in an old saucepan. The thing to keep in 
mind when applying artificial means of keeping up the temperature is 
to endeavour to keep the temperature from lowering beyond a given 
point, for this is much easier of accomplishment than to raise the 
temperature after it has fallen, while the fruit, as a matter of course, 
is better kept under the former conditions than under the latter. It 
is a safe plan to keep the fruit shut up and covered for a while 
after open weather is established. It may be necessary to allow a 
current of air through the building in order to dry any accumulation 
of damp which may have settled on the fruit ; care, of course, must 
be taken to choose a hard drying breezy day for this purpose. 
As to the removal of decaying fruit, we have not found that to 
be an undertaking of any great moment when the following rules 
have been followed—viz., to store only good and unblemished fruit ; 
to have all fruit removed as it becomes ready for use, and in cases 
where sorts keep a good while after they are ready for use to see that 
these are all used before decay begins ; and generally to carry out 
the matters of detail mentioned in foregoing remarks.—B. 
THOUGHTS ON THE PAST YEAK. 
Were I to venture to say all I think on the events pertaining to 
gardening and the cultivation of the land generally during the past year, 
it is almost certain I should “ tread on somebody’s toes,” and that would 
be quite out of harmony with the sentiments of the season when everyone 
is wishing each other a happy new year. In this wish I share sincerely, 
not towards those who have agreed with me alone, but equally to those 
who have differed ; and especially with these latter, no matter who they 
are, nor how strong they have been in their opposition, I would like_to 
“ tak a cup o’ kindness for Auld Lang Syne.’’ 
I AM not at all certain that the year that has just closed has been one 
of the brightest and best for gardeners generally, and it is certain it has 
not been prosperous for their agricultural brethren ; but I think this—that 
there has been more despondency on the part of farmers than is justified, 
and that they have not striven with the same zeal to meet and overcome 
obstacles as gardeners have. There seems to have been a resting from 
strong effort on the part of 'agriculturists in the lurking hope that some 
magician’s wand would by a miraculous swoop suddenly bring prosperity 
to an “oppressed” community. I believe in no such things. Farmers 
have “ given up,” gardeners have “plodded on,” and the result is that 
gardens have been as productive as ever all through the depression period, 
but farms have not. The only safe and sound principle to act upon in 
good and bad times is to make the best of opportunities ; and the greater 
the difficulties the greater should be the efforts to surmount them. 
It has become almost a habit to think and say that “ times ” were 
never so bad as now. If my memory is not deceptive I have known them 
decidedly worse—worse for everybody, labourers, farmers, gardeners, land¬ 
lords. I can remember when wages on farms and in gardens were at the 
least 10 per cent, lower than now and the necessaries of life, on the 
average, 10 per cent, higher—that is, 20 per cent, in favour of the present 
over the “ good old times ’’ of the past ; while the national rent roll now 
is certainly greater than it was then, notwithstanding the “ reductions.’ 
I can well remember the time when garden and farm labourers received 
10s. a week on an estate where the wage rate is now 20 per cent, higher, 
and the rental of the same estate is much greater now than it was then. 
Farm produce was lower in price than it is now—mutton 4d. to 6d. a 
pound at the butcher’s; butter 8d. a pound; eggs twenty-four for a 
shilling ; oats 15s. a quarter ; barley 25s., and Wheat as low as it is now, 
sometimes, at others a good deal higher. But farmers “lived” and paid 
their rents then. Why cannot they do so now ? 
The truth about the whole matter in my opinion, as regards the 
relative prosperity or otherwise of the “ times,” is not to be found in the 
rent roll cf one man or the wage of another, but in something else. It 
is not the earning, hut the spending in which lies the sequel of the present 
“ depression.” A term of inflated prosperity begot a more luxurious 
style of living. The faster money was made the more lavishly it was 
spent. Agriculturists innumerable were drawn into the vortex and had 
no balance at the hankers when the time of trial came. They had to 
limit, expenditure by restricting labour, stock, and fertilisers, and as a 
