304 [Senate 



are more acid, and are particularly excellent for winter cooking. The 

 Black Gilliflower^ though too dry to be greatly admired, is fine in 

 flavor, and possesses the combined value of great productiveness and 

 long keeping, which would render it highly useful for feeding stock 

 in winter and springy if it should ever fail of a market. Among long 

 keepers, the Jforthern Spy and Roxbury Russet stand pre-eminent. 

 The former, which originated in East Bloomfield, in western New- 

 York, when well grown, is a large handsome apple, remarkable for 

 the undiminished freshness of its flavor through spring and early sum- 

 mer, but can never succeed finely as a market fruit, as when the trees 

 become old most of the apples. become scrubby, and greatly inferior 

 in value, notwithstanding good culture and pruning. Charles Cha- 

 pin, of West Bloomfield, (who owns the original tree and orchard,) 

 out of seventy-five barrels raised in 1843, succeeded in selecting only 

 fifteen barrels fit for the market. In this respect, the Roxbury Russet j 

 though inferior in quality and size, is greatly preferable ; its uniformly 

 fair surface, and its unrivalled quality for long keeping, renders it 

 eminently profitable — as the cultivator, by keeping his crop two or 

 three months beyond the usual period for winter apples, may often 

 ^obtain double or triple price. As an example of this, it may be sta- 

 ted that an acquaintance of the writer, in western New-York, obtained 

 invariably, for many successive years, one dollar a bushel for all his 

 apples in the neighboring village, whither he carried them the early 

 part of each summer; and, as an example of their long keeping, an- 

 other cultivator used to hand apples to his friends, with this remark : 

 " Here are this year's fruit, and there are last year's ; take your choice." 

 The JYewtown Pippin is an excellent apple for keeping and retention 

 of flavor, and is exceedingly popular, and commands a high price in 

 the English markets, as well as in those of this country. But in most 

 parts of this State, the seasons are often too short for its perfection ; 

 and being very liable to mildew, a large portion of the crop is neces- 

 sarily rejected in selection for market. The American Pippin has 

 been strongly recommended as good, and a long keeper ; but no cul- 

 tivator should raise it. Before it ripens it is more remarkable for its 

 impenetrable hardness than any thing else, and is hence sometimes 

 called the " Grindstone Apple ;" and as soon as it ripens, it becomes 

 dry and insipid, and good for nothing. 



Winter sweet Apples are not valuable for culinary purposes, but 



