98 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Complaiuers against a bountiful harvest of apples should 

 remember that there never was a year when every poor 

 family had all the fruit they desired, or as much as would be 

 conducive to their comfort and health. If the producers 

 of a superabundance would distribute a few barrels among 

 their poor neighbors, or send some to the homes of orphans 

 and the asylums for the aged and homeless in our cities, their 

 complaints would be exchanged for thanksgivings. 



Orchardists should also provide more liberally than is their 

 wont for the supply of their own households. The home- 

 market literally, that is, the market in one's own family, is 

 the best in the world. There is no sense in a shoemaker's 

 wife going without shoes, nor in a producer's family going 

 without produce, or being supplied with the refuse, such as 

 will not sell at the highest price. " The laborer is worthy of 

 Jbis hire ; " and, if he can be paid in kind, it should by all 

 means be kindly paid. There is no fruit so conducive to 

 health, or so congenial to most stomachs, as the apple ; and 

 if each member of a family could be supplied daily with half 

 a dozen through the entire year, — as can easily be done 

 with a little painstaking, — there would be a great saving of 

 doctors' bills, less complaint of dyspeptic stomachs, and no 

 complaint at all of a superabundant production. 



Then, again, apples are worth much more to feed to stock 

 than is generally supposed. Professor Salisbury makes them 

 to be almost as valuable as potatoes for feeding. Besides the 

 direct nourishment they afford, the stimulus given to diges- 

 tion by apples makes them a valuable appetizer. All domes- 

 tic animals are extravagantly fond of apples. Horses, cows, 

 sheep, and swine are inclined to eat them too greedily at first, 

 if allowed a free range among them. Moderate rations of 

 apples should therefore be fed till the animals become accus- 

 tomed to them. A peck per day at first for a horse or cow 

 will do no damage, and the ration may gradually be increased 

 to half a bushel, producing great vigor in the former and a 

 great flow of excellent milk in the latter. Sheep and swine 

 also thrive on an apple-diet, and the mutton and pork pro- 

 duced are healthy and well-flavored. 



The late-keeping varieties of apples may be preserved for a 

 year or more by careful picking and packing, and exclusion 

 from light and air, at a uniform temperature just above 



