27!8 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



medium-sized apple, fully ripened, almost ready for the final change which 

 awaits all fruit; wipe it clean ; if your teeth are good, do not pare it; eat it 

 without a knife; and I can assure you, you will find it to be one of the best 

 varieties of the season, whether the time of trial be summer, fall or winter. 

 Next, the way to preserve them for the longest possiljle time, is to keep them in 

 a uniform temperature, as near to SO*^ of zero as you can, and not eat them, nor 

 let any other person, and when you have ilone this to perfection, the apple will 

 finally rot ; but you certainly have kept them as long as you could, and you 

 could not do better, if the sole oliject is to keep them. 



The above is a short, definite and concise answer; but in sincerity I must 

 say, tl)at to give sucli an answer as your committee no doubt hope for, is far 

 beyond my capacity- 



My studies on the subject commenced more than fifty years ago ; and twenty- 

 five years ago I thought I knew the subject almost by heart. For about fifteen 

 years I had studied it in New England, and fourteen years in Michigan, with 

 the best text books I could procure. I thought myself competent to teach, and 

 commenced by giving an order to Mr. Cooley, our Hudson nurseryman, to raise 

 for me 1,500 apple trees to three years of age, of the kinds I would select, to be 

 w'ell cared for and well grown. These trees were designed wholly for raising 

 marketable apples. Tlie distinction between such apples and amateur dessert 

 fruit is often marked and distinct. 



I will give you a list of tlie fruit and number of each as I planted them in 

 one orciiard in the springs of 1861-V, premising that Mr. Cooley performed his 

 contract iu all respects to my satisfaction. 



Here is the list I phmted in that orchard after my twenty-five years' study of 

 the subject: 

 14-i Trees of American Golden Kusset. 



Roxbury Iiusset. 



Newtown Pippin. 



Peck's Pleasant. 



Fallowater. 



Esopus Spitzenburgh. 



Baldwin. 



Westfield Seek-No-Further. 



Bellflower. 



Swaar. 



Red Canada. 



Rhode Island Greening. 



New York Vandevere. 



Tompkins Co. King. 



Wagener. 



Ram bo. 



Fall Pippin. 



Red Astrachan. 



I will now reca|)itulate these varieties, with my present view of them, only 

 saying that judging from my past experience my choice twenty years hence 

 would probably be different from to-day, although I cannot think the difference 

 would be as much as in the past twenty years. 



American Golden Russet. 



One of the very best. I think the income from these trees the first fifteen 

 years after setting was nearly as much as from all the rest of the orchard. This 



