The Albany Register

Storing Winter Apples.—A Correspondent of Lands of Life, who claims to have had extended experience, is "decidedly of the opinion" that apples keep far better when put into close boxes or barrels, and secluded as much as possible from the air. When thus stored, he says, they will come out in the spring full and plump as when taken from the tree. Many varieties, as the Talman Sweet, Spitzenburg, and those kinds that are not considered as long keepers, and shrivel badly, will do well in this way.

I have, he continues, found universally, that they keep better to let them lie without picking over. It is much better to pack them in large bins across the cellar, say six or seven feet high, and four or five feet wide, and cover them up tight, than to lay them on shelves.

I once saw such a bin that a man had kept through winter. About the first of April he thought he would open the windows on the side of the cellar next to the bin, to let in the air, that they might keep better. I was at his place, and he called my attention to the fact. Two windows just over the bin were opened about ten days or two weeks, and the apples just exactly opposite the windows about a third rotted for about a foot in depth, and the remaining part were not rotted at all.

Another instance. A neighbor of mine had about five hundred bushels in a pile in the cellar. As they became a little specked, he commenced picking them over; when about half done, got tired and let them go. When marketed, about six weeks after, he found that about one-third of those picked over were not fit for market, while all but about one-twentieth of the others were good. This I have seen in numerous instances.

If you wish to try the experiment, make a box as tight as a carpenter can make it, and when picking from the orchard fill it and nail it fast. Let it lie in the orchard till it is in danger of freezing; then put it in the cellar. Put the same quantity on shelves on trial. I am pretty sure the experiment will convince.