60 
THE APPLE. 
room will be found in the succeeding* treatise on pears. Meanwhile it may¬ 
be observed that a steady temperature is the chief consideration. Some 
make much of a circulation of air. This is by no means important. 
On the contrary, it is likely to be injurious. The fruit, too, is best 
laid on wooden shelves. These should be made of poplar, sycamore, 
lime, or other white wood. Deal, oak, ash, elm, and almost all other 
woods give a taste to the fruit. Nothing should be laid under the fruit, 
unless it be a few sheets of tissue paper. Hay, straw, and such sub¬ 
stances are injurious, and almost sure to flavour the fruit, and induce 
mustiness and hasten decomposition. Neither should apples be covered 
over above, any more than padded below. They ripen best, and are of 
the highest flavour, when left fully exposed to the free atmosphere of the 
fruit room or store. The light should also be shut out. Exposed to 
light, apples ripen sooner, and also develope a stronger tendency to shrivel. 
A more even temperature is also possible with the light shut out. Apples 
gathered at the proper time and stored in the right way finish best 
without any external help. They have all the elements of the highest 
quality within themselves, which they will be sure to develope if time 
only is given to them. 
In storing apples, too, a careful selection should be made between late 
and early varieties. If these could be stored in separate places it would 
be desirable to do so ; if not, they should be placed as far apart as 
possible. For ripeness and rottenness also seem rather catching. Good 
keepers seem to be partially affected by the bad, while decomposing 
apples are positively infectious to sound ones, therefore the decayed 
fruit should be constantly removed, and early and ripe sorts be kept as 
far from the sound and long keeping varieties as possible. The classifi¬ 
cation of fruit at storing saves time as well as assists good and long 
keeping, and can hardly be too carefully attended to. All inferior or 
injured fruit should also be stored by itself. Few things give more 
trouble or mar the appearance of fruit stores more than the packing away 
of inferior fruit with the best, and the placing of small, pecked, or bruised 
specimens with those that are sound and perfect. The plan of isolating 
each fruit by packing in tissue paper, sand, burnt earth, or other sub¬ 
stances, though favourable to long keeping by excluding the air, also 
injures and often entirely destroys the flavour of fruit, for the air seems 
essential to the perfect maturation of apples after they are gathered. 
Stored on. latticed shelves in single files, looked over occasionally to 
renaove any specked fruit, each variety will keep its appointed time 
without further trouble. That time, however, varies according to 
seasons, and is seldom according to timps given in fruit lists or 
catalogues. Each fruit has, in fact, a wide range of season according to 
