KEEPING TOMATOES
SIR,—After reading Mr. Wadsworth's letter I inspected my own fruit, and out of 112 fruit contained in five tins I found that six had become softish, but on cutting them across I was unable to find any signs of putrefaction. A sample taste from each tin proved the flavour to be equal to that of previous years.
I was puzzled to account for the failure and continued to think about it all the week. But on reading Mr. Burgis's letter the trouble seemed clear, at any rate in his case, so that I wondered if the same had happened to Mr. Wadsworth. Mr. Burgis writes : . . . and placed on the lid. Now I can only write from memory of my original note to Country Life contributor, but I am certain that I concluded my instructions by saying: the top layer to be covered by sawdust. Nor do I recall anything in the Country Life column about putting on the lid. If by my neglect to mention that the lid should not be put on it has been implied that it needed to be replaced, then I can only apologise to your correspondents for what was sin of omission. Yet it is difficult to imagine that anyone would shut up, in an almost air-tight container, fruit so wet as are tomatoes, without realising that in that environment they would surely putrefy. Mr. Burgis will see that what I advocated with biscuit tins he has accomplished with success with dishes.
In view of my being the unwitting cause of so many failures, I have not the moral courage to sign myself other than as referred to in this correspondence.—Yours, &c., DOCTOR-GARDENER.
Previous page
