THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Septeubee IS, 1SG0. 
0/4 
of the atmospheric air. The best practical mode of doing this is 
to pack the fruit in boxes of perfectly dried pit-sand, employing 
boxes or bins, and taking care that no two Apples or Pears 
touch. The sand should be thoroughly dried by fire heat, and 
over the uppermost layer of fruit the sand should form a cover¬ 
ing nine inches deep. Sand operates as a preservative, not 
only by excluding air and moisture, but by keeping the fruit 
cool, for it is one of the worst conductors of heat, and, moreover, 
it keeps carbonic acid in contact with the fruit. All fruit in 
ripening emits carbonic acid, and this gas is one of the most 
powerful preventives of decay known. 
Putrefaction requires indispensably three contingencies—mois¬ 
ture, warmth, and the presence of atmospheric air, or at least of 
its oxygen. Now burying in sand excludes all these as much as 
can be practically effected. The more minutely divided into 
small portions animal or vegetable juices may be, so much longer 
are they preserved from putridity : hence one of the reasons why 
bruised fruit decays more quickly than sound—the membranes 
of the pulp dividing it into little cells are ruptured, and a larger 
quantity of the juices is together; but this is only one reason, 
for bruising allows the air to penetrate, and it deranges that 
inexplicable vital power which, whilst uninjured, acts so anti- 
septically in all fruits, seeds, and eggs. Bruises the most slight, 
therefore, are to be avoided ; and instead of putting fruit in heaps 
to sweat, as it is ignorantly termed, but in fact to lieat, and 
promote decay, fruit should be placed one by one upon a floor 
covered with dry sand, and the day following, if the air be dry, 
stored away as before directed. Fruit for storing should not 
only be gathered during the mid-day hours of a dry day, but 
after the occurrence of several such. 
Although the fruit is stored in sand, it is not best for it to 
be kept there up to the very time of using, for the presence of 
light, warmth, and air are necessary for the elaboration of sac¬ 
charine matter. A fortnight’s consumption of each sort should 
be kept upon Beech, Birch, or Elm shelves, with a ledge all 
round to keep on them about half an inch in depth of dry sand. 
On this the fruit rests softly, and the vacancy caused by every 
day's consumption should be replaced from the boxes as it 
occurs. If deal is employed for the shelving, it is apt to impart 
a flavour of turpentine to the fruit. 
The store-room should have a northern aspect, be on a second 
floor, and have at least two windows to promote ventilation in 
dry days. A stove in the room, or liot-water pipe with a regu¬ 
lating-cock, is almost essential, for heat will be required occa¬ 
sionally in very cold and in damp weather. The windows should 
have stout insiae shutters. 
The temperature of the fruit-room should never rise above 40°, 
nor sink below 34° of Fahrenheit’s thermometer ; the more regular 
the temperature the better. Powdered charcoal is even a better 
preservative for packing fruit than sand, and one box not to be 
opened until April, ought to be packed with this most powerful 
antiseptic. If it were not from its soiling nature, and the trouble 
coasequent upon its employment, we should advocate its exclusive 
use. We have kept Apples not usually good-keeping, perfectly 
sound in it until June. 
It is not unworthy of observation, that the eye, or extremity 
furthest from the stalk, is invariably the first to ripen. This is 
most perceptible in Pears, especially in the Chaumontette. That 
end, therefore, should be slightly embedded in the sand, as thus 
excluding it from the light checks its progress in ripening. 
The perfecting of seed is a process very similar to the maturation 
of fruit—indeed, for the most part, w'hatever advances the one 
promotes the other. The chief difference is, that if seed be the 
exclusive object, less moisture and rich food should be supplied j 
to the plants, inasmuch as that an abundant supply of these 
increases excessively the development of the succulent part of the 
fruit, and yet the vessels from this to the seed often wither and 
render it abortive. A similar defective fertility occurs if the 
female parent in animals is over-stimulated and fat.—J. 
(To he continued.) 
WHAT TO LOOK FOK ON THE SEASHOKE. 
(Continued from page 357.) 
Echinodeemata (Continued). 
We now proceed to examine more closely the particular 
divisions of this curious class, and the first we have to notice is 
the 
Ceixoidea oe Excbinites. 
With these creatures at an earlier period of the world our seas 
must have teemed. This may be proved by the profusion of their 
remains in a fossil state, vast strata of marble in the northern 
part of both hemispheres being entirely formed of their skeletons 
known as “Lily Stones.” For miles and miles you may walk¬ 
over their fossilised remains, and these not only form occasional 
layers, but the entire mass is built up of them as completely, in 
the words of Professor Buckland, “ as a corn-rick is of straws 
stems and a crown of rays bending in peculiar curves resembling 
the stalk and bell-shaped blossom of a flower similar to a Lily. 
In the same districts where these abound may be found on the 
beach small perforated stony beads, rounded and polished by the 
action of the waves, and vulgarly known as “St. Cuthbert’s 
Beads.” These are only the joints which once formed the stem of 
the Encrinite, which is itself the skeleton of an ancient Star Fish. 
These are, however, now as rare as they were once common. 
A fine specimen was some time since dredged up in the Carib¬ 
bean Sea, in the West Indies ; and from the stem having been 
violently torn in two, and the base left behind, it is conjectured 
that the creature was immoveably fixed to the rock like a sea¬ 
weed. This is the only recent living specimen of any size which, 
has been seen, although a minute kind was at one time supposed 
to inhabit our own seas, measuring about three-quarters of an 
inch in length, and was described as “ having five pairs of beau¬ 
tifully pinnated arms, and of a deep rose colour, dotted over with 
brown spots, which are regarded as ovaries. It has been dredged 
up in some parts of the Irish Sea, and is occasionally found on 
the strand. It is said also to emit a fluid which imparts a 
roseate tinge to the water.” This supposed Encrinite, however, 
turned out to be only the youthful condition of a common- 
enough Echinoderm, the Comatula or Rosy Feather Star, so 
called from its colour, and its feathery rays arranged, as usual, in 
five pairs. 
The Rosy Feathee Stab (Comatula rosacea). 
This creature is the only one of the group which bears any 
analogy to the fossil Star Fishes, and is for this reason assigned 
*o the class called Crinoidese or Encrinites (Sea Lilies). It lias 
been found on many pads of the British coast. It is uniformly 
| of a deep rose colour, dotted over with brown spots, which are 
j the ovaries, and is fringed with transparent cirrhi. It consists 
| of a cup-shaped calcareous base, in the concavity of which is 
i placed a soft body, and on the convexity a number of Blender- 
jointed simple arms. The base branches out into five arms,, 
which are bi-furcated, so that the animal appears to be ten-armed. 
The two branches on each arm being very long, and the part 
below the hi-furcation extremely short. These arms are pinnated 
or feathered with single pinna 1 , each of which possesses a mem¬ 
branous expansion. 
The Rosy Feather Star is found both in deep and shallow 
1 water. When fully grown, however, it chiefly frequents the 
former. The adult animals are free, but ‘When young they are 
I attached to a stalk ; but in spite of the attachment they display 
