APPLE. 3? 



APPLE 

 POMMIER. Pynts mains. 



THE Apple being so closely connected with our wants and 

 enjoyments, is entitled to the first notice in the catalogue of 

 our fruits. The Apple Orchard is, in truth, the vineyard of 

 our country ; and the delicious beverage that can be obtained 

 from some of the varieties of this excellent fruit being cal- 

 culated to cheer the invalid, as well as to strengthen the 

 healthy, entitles it to high consideration. It is one of oui 

 oldest and best fruits, and has become completely naturalized 

 to our soil ; none can be brought to so high a degree of per- 

 fection with so little trouble ; and of no other are there so 

 many excellent varieties in general cultivation, calculated 

 for almost every soil, situation, and climate, which our coun- 

 try affords. 



The Apple tree is supposed by some to attain a great age : 

 Haller mentions some trees in Herefordshire, England, that 

 were a thousand years old, and were still highly prolific ; but 

 Knight considers two hundred years as the ordinary duration 

 of a healthy tree, grafted on a crab stock, and planted in a 

 strong, tenacious soil. Speechly mentions a tree in an or- 

 chard at Burtonjoice, near Nottingham, about sixty years 

 old, with branches extending from seven to nine yards round 

 the, bole, which in some seasons produced upward of a hun- 

 dred bushels of apples. 



The Romans had only twenty-two varieties in Pliny's 

 time. There are upward of fifteen hundred now cultivated 

 in the garden of the Horticultural Society of London, under 

 name ; the catalogue of the Linnsean Botanic Garden at 

 Flushing contains about four hundred ; and one of our en- 

 terprising horticulturists, Mr. William Coxe, of Burlington, 

 New Jersey, enumerated one hundred and thirty-three kinds 

 cultivated in the United States, some years ago. They are 

 usually divided into dessert, baking, and cider fruits: the 



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