THE SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 351 



VARIETIES OF APPLES. 



Col. Curtis chats away in the Eural New Yorker in a very pleasant way 

 about varieties of apples. This is how he puts it: 



The buyers all want red apples. They say they sell the best. This fancy 

 for color has given Baldwins a boom, as they arc red and handle and ship well. 



There is another advantage for this fruit — the tree is hardy and a constant 

 bearer. I do not like the apple to eat, but on account of its market value and 

 the hardiness of the tree and strong bearing propensity, in an orchard of 100 

 trees I would plant 75 Baldwins. Too many varieties of fruit are a nuisance. 

 They make an endless amount of work, and many kinds while they have a 

 value for home use are unsuited for keeping or shipping. Tliey do not pay. 

 The Esopus Spitzenburgh, I think, is the daintiest-flavored apple that grows. 

 My mother would have no other for her mince pies and company apple sauce 

 — this had to be extra nice, you know — but since the country has become so 

 open, exposed to the cold Avinds, the trees winter-kill. The Spitzenburgh wants 

 protection and a virgin soil. The latter requirement can be made up in part by 

 the use of ashes, and the former by planting wind-breaks of evergreens. I treated 

 a stunted Fameuse apple tree twenty years ago with a wheelbarrow load of 

 leached ashes, and that tree shows the benefit of it to this day. Somehow we 

 all like the kinds of apples we used to eat when we were young, and so Khode 

 Island Greenings, Gr ill i flowers, and Bellflowers still have a place in our hearts and 

 in my orchard. They bring to mind the times when neighbors used to " come 

 over and spend the evening," — those old-fashioned, informal visits, in which 

 api^les filled an important part of the social cheer. They used to keep company 

 Avith the doughnnts when we were young. 



EVERGREENS IN THE ORCHARD. 



A marked feature of the orchards of T. J. Yeomans, of "Walworth, N. Y., are 

 the protecting belts of Norway Spruce, running north and south, every 30 or 

 40 rods. They do much toward breaking the force of the winds sweeping over 

 the hills, and save the fruit when maturing. One autumn just before the time 

 of apple picking there was a furious wind storm, and much was said around 

 town about the quantities of fruit blown off in the orchards around. Mr. Y. 

 sent a large number of hands over to the orchards to pick up the wind-falls 

 for evaporating, but they were soon obliged to return with very little fruit, the 

 wind-break on the west having so well protected the fruit. 



TWO PEAR ORCHARDS. 



We give in contrast accounts of two pear orchards, the one in Virginia and 

 the other in Wisconsin: 



Franklin Davis, the veteran fruit grower of Kichmond, Va., gives an account, 

 in his report to the American Pomological Society, of the pear orchard of the 

 Old Dominion Fruit-Crowing Company. The ground which it occupies is the 

 south bank, 75 miles below Richmond. The farm belonging to the company con- 

 tains 500 acres, mostly sandy loam, underlaid with shell-marl from 5 to 15 feet 

 feet below the surface, with a natural drainage. About 18.000 peach trees were 

 planted from 18G0 to 1867, but the fruit rotted badly, and the orchard was neg- 



