WINTER MEETING. 183 



Fresh, as a table decoration and dessert; fried, roasted, baked 

 and stewed ; in pies, puddings, dumplings, rolls and cobblers, not to 

 mention apple fritters and maple syrup; as preserves, jelly, jam, mar- 

 malade, apple-float and apple-butter. Dried in the sun, flies and bugs 

 in three days, cured in the evaporator in three hours, capable of being 

 kept fresh from year to year, it's a most desirable appendix to the cul- 

 inary department of every well-regulated household. 



Sweet cider through a rye-straw ; hard cider tempered with a hot 

 poker; champagne cider to exhilarate ; apple-brandy and rock-candy 

 for consumptives ; apple-toddy for Christmas ; apples boiled in new 

 wine for Frenchmen, and slops from the distillery for hogs. Other 

 uses, limited only by the inventive genius of a free, independent and 

 fruit-loving people. 



When a Roman, at dinner, ate the entire course, from soup to des- 

 sert, it was expressed by the proverb, "from egg to apple" (and no 

 doubt Major Holsinger verified it today). If this paper does not fill 

 the bill " from egg to apple," it is not for want of length and effort. 



CONCLUSION. 



Everything should have a conclusion. This paper must have one, 

 though long deferred. 



The absence of records and want of data, the utter barrenness of 

 the field, with mirage instead of oases, indifference to the subject and 

 lack of appreciation of its importance by ancient authors and modern 

 horticulturists, have made history of the apple impossible. 



There have always been two classes or species — the crab and the 

 wild. Both appear indigenous in Western Asia, E^orthern Europe and 

 the United States. 



The crab improved has, as far as ascertainable, always produced 

 the improved crab-apple. The wild, no doubt deteriorated from what 

 was once an excellent fruit, could, by cultivation, be restored to its 

 original excellence. No one has yet recorded the improvement of the 

 crab into a fine variety. It is only "generally" conceded. Plants, 

 animals and men degenerate without the aid of intelligent culture. 

 They improve with it. The long horn cattle of Texas, the mustang of 

 the plains, the savage, barbarous and half-civilized tribes of men, are 

 but degenerate specimens of noble ancestry — degenerated from want 

 of proper culture and right exercise of a former intelligence. God 

 made everything good — good of its own kind — man in His own image 

 and the " beautiful apple to subserve a noble and glorious purpose." 



The apple, in its better condition, was carried westward by the 

 Greeks and Romans, and was of excellent quality at very early dates 



