The grand secret of preserving is to deprive the fruit of its water of vegetation in the shortest time possible; for which purpose the fruit ought to be gathered just at the point of proper maturity. An ingenious French writer considers fruit of all kinds as having four distinct periods of maturity—the maturity of vegetation, of honeyfication, of expectation, and of coction.
1620. The First Period
The first period he considers to be that when, having gone through the vegetable processes up to the ripening, it appears ready to drop spontaneously. This, however, is a period which arrives sooner in the warm climate of France than in the colder orchards of England; but its absolute presence may be ascertained by the general filling out of the rind, by the bloom, by the smell, and by the facility with which it may be plucked from the branch. But even in France, as generally practised in England, this period may be hastened, either by cutting circularly through the outer rind at the foot of the branch, so as to prevent the return of the sap, or by bending the branch to a horizontal position on an espalier, which answers the same purpose.
1621. The Second Period
The second period, or that of Honeyfication, consists in the ripeness and flavour which fruits of all kinds acquire if plucked a few days before arriving at their first maturity, and preserved under a proper degree of temperature. Apples may acquire or arrive at this second degree of maturity upon the tree, but it too often happens that the flavour of the fruit is thus lost, for fruit over-ripe is always found to have parted with a portion of its flavour.
1622. The Third Stage
The third stage, or of Expectation, as the theorist quaintly terms it, is that which is acquired by pulpy fruits, which, though sufficiently ripe to drop off the tree, are even then hard and sour. This is the case with several kinds both of apples and pears, not to mention other fruits, which always improve after keeping in the confectionery,—but with respect to the medlar and the quince, this maturity of expectation is absolutely necessary.