Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1878 — Packing Winter Apples. [ARTICLE]

Packing Winter Apples.

Fresh apples the entire year are not only desirable, but quite possible. First and foremost fruit designed for long keeping must be hand-picked, with the aid of ladders, to avoid bruising. It is also best that the harvesting be accomplished on a dry day. Do not mix varieties, but place each kind separately in bins in a cool outhouse or fruitroom out of reach of the rays of the sun, where they will in two or three weeks have completed the sweating process, by which the skins are toughened and much moisture is lost Next carefully assort those uniform in size and quality, and place in clean new barrels carefully by hand; begin packing by placing a tier of apples with their ends to the closed head of the barrel, then fill up without bruising the fruit: shake down thoroughly, and fill the barrel so full that the nead must be pressed in with a lever, flattening the last tier of apples. The fruit must be pressed so firmly that it will not move in handling. After heading up, place the barrels in some cool, shaded position, there to remain until in danger of freezing; finally remove to a dry cellar or fruit-room, where a temperature just above freezing is maintained. Packed in this manner apples will keep soundly until the season of ripening arrives, when they should be consumed. The King, Hubbardson, Baldwin, Greening, Spy, Spitzenburg, Newton Pippin, Roxbury Russet and English Russ will ripen nearly in the order indicated, and will then exhibit their best qualities and aroma; the last mentioned will keep all summer if desired. Apples are not infrequently stored in open bins in cellars, especially the snorter keepers; the fruit, instead of remaining crisp and juicy tinder thia treatment, soon becomes wilted, vapid and tasteless, proving the necessity of firm packing and close covering when it is desired to preserve it any great length of time.— N. Y. World.