Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-09-01
FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.
THE PREVENTION OF DECAY
IN THE APPLE.
Care Must Begin With the blossom
The Object of Roots In the Spring
Needs OF Potatoes - Poultry PiclrinGs
and Household Helps.
Decay of tho Apple.

No one likes to eat decayed apples,
but in. the present state of sin in
man and in nature apples are sure
to rot, and ii has seemed as if there
was no way to save them from speedy
destruction, says q Boston exchange.
The ordinary way OF treating fruit, if
its decay is to be prevented, is to
pick it carefully, without bruises,
and to place the barrels in n dry,
cool room, where the natural ten.
denotes to decay may be resisted
as long as possible. This sub
ject has been studied scien.
tifically by a professor IN Rutgers
College, DR.. Byron ID. Halstead. and
his paper in the Popular Science
in which light is thrown upon the
treatment Of apples. Ordinarily no
attention is paid TO them until they
are grown, but this writer takes us
back to the time OF the apple bios
SONS, and shows that If good fruit is
TO e'secured in healthy condition
it must be protected from the begin
ming. The small specks that dot the
surface of an apple that is just
springing from a blossom are one of
the low forms OF plant life belonging
TO the molds called spores These
spores are produced in great album
dance, aud being carried BY the air,
alight upon the fruit, and there ger
inmate into specks which feed upon
the substance obtained from the skin
of the apple. Whenever these specks
are observed it is certain the apple
will decay.
Another defect in apples is known
to fruit dealers as the "scab. This
is due to a mold which is as different
in its real structure from the specks
as the two are unlike in general APP
pearance. 1t is as much distinct
kind OF plant as the apple tree upon
which it thrives. The apples are
first attacked by the scab fungus,
while the tree is in blossom or short.
~ after. and this fact is what makes
it necessary that the fruit should
be treated as soon as the apple tree
is in blossom. The germs which
| gather in the form of scab are the
germs of bacteria, and as soon as the
skin of the apple becomes broken in
any place, the coarser decay germs
enter, and quickly overrun it with a
motley vegetation of various
molds. All these products rot,
and the question of saving the
apples is transferred TO the matter of
doing something for the fruit while
it is yet untouched by bacteria that
are floating in the air. What DR..
! Halstead suggested is that this de-
! cay of the fruit shall be anticipated
Nature tries to protect the apple in
all the processes of its growth, but
the bacteria are sure to appear wher-
ever they can find their way through
the tough skin. The only way in
which the apple can be saved is by
protecting their skins by the use OF
fuugicides in the orchard while the
fruit is growing, then by picking
the fruit carefully and by placing it
In a cold. dry room, where it is free
from fungus germs. and where it
will keep indefinitely until chemical
change ruins it as an article OF
/ food.
There is no absolute protection for
the ripened fruit, or for the keeping
off the. specks and blotches where
bacteria lodge, ready to prey upon
the fruit at its first opportunity.
Each OF these spores feeds upon the
ruptured pimples in the skin of
the apple, and the only way to keep
the harvested fruit effectively is to
spray it with fungicide, and even
this will not do it excepting under
the most favorable circumstances
The only sure way to keep fruit is TO
cook it until the germs within it
have been killed, and then to can it
to prevent the entrance of those
without II the fungicides are used
freely in the orchard, while the fruit
is growing. the result will be fairer
fruit and the prevention of it from
decay TO large extent. Use this
prevention, pick the apples so as to
avoid bruises, place them in dry
storage room, and you will have fruit
that will last as long rs the chem
ical substance will allow This is in
substance the only treatment that
| will Drevent the apDle from decay.