34 FRUIT BOOK. 



turn. The cultivation of the apple upon dwarf 

 stocks (our Crab makes a good stock for this pur- 

 pose) is carried to a great extent in Guernsey 

 and Jersey ; these are grafted upon Paradise 

 stocks ; they produce fruit in three years, when 

 not more than four or five feet in height, and 

 about the same in diameter through the branches. 

 In such cases, the ground is very properly given 

 up entirely for this purpose ; the trees being 

 planted ten feet apart, and five feet distant, in the 

 rows. A quarter of an acre planted in this way 

 will contain two hundred and forty trees, the area 

 of the surfaces of which, taken collectively, 

 amounts to nearly as much as the whole ground. 

 Mr. Rivers has long cultivated a selection of ap- 

 ples in a miniature orchard, and describes his 

 mode of placing them in the following words : 

 " By planting the proper sorts, apples may be 

 grown in as small a space of ground as gooseber- 

 ries. The trees are planted at six feet distance 

 each way, in quincunx order." 



APPLES. 



Early Harvest. This is the earliest apple 

 worthy of cultivation : the form is flat, of medium 

 size ; the skin, when perfectly ripe, is of a beau- 

 tifully bright straw color ; the flesh tender and 

 sprightly ; if gathered before they are fully ripe, 

 it has too much acidity. The finest fruits are 

 those which drop ripe from the tree ; the branches 

 make very acute angles, by which it is readily 

 distinguished from most other trees in the orch- 

 ard ; it bears young. Ripe in July and August. 

 M. 



