86 THE ORCHAED AND FETJIT GAEDEff. 



Both pears and quinces should he peeled and cored 

 quickly, and, one by one, as they are done, dropped into 

 the water which is to form the liquor, and which should 

 be no more than enough barely to cover the fruit, when 

 packed in close. Sugar and lemon-peel to taste may be 

 added, and the liquor may be allowed to waste consider- 

 ably ; as the fruit gets uncovered by the wasting of the 

 liquor, the steam will carry on the cooking process, if 

 the stewpan is shut down as perfectly tight as it ought, 

 and is kept close shut. 



If there be any particular reason for wishing to graft 

 any, either eating or baking pears, on the quince stock, 

 which will not commonly grow well upon it, it may be 

 made to do so by double working. Graft or bud a free 

 growing sort on the quince, let it grow for a season or 

 two, and then graft or bud it with the desired sort. 



CHAPTEE XV. 



APPLES. 



IF the pear is the most delicious, the apple is the most 

 useful of fruits. In the ungenial springs of our climate 

 pears are often lost, apples seldom : wisely blooming 

 later, they escape the sharp spring frosts, and bring their 

 fruit to perfection when the earlier flowering and more 

 tender trees are stripped. The crop, too, is as lasting as 

 it is secure, and we think the lady a poor manager who 

 has not her store of apples to go to for winter and spring 

 use, whether she have to purchase, or be in the more 

 favourable case of having the opportunity of growing 

 choice sorts in her own ground. 



I say choice sorts advisedly, for who that can produce 

 first-class fruit would tolerate inferior sorts, requiring 

 equal attention, care, and cost at so inferior a return ? 



Of this most varied and useful fruit, the apple, Pynts 

 mains, no less than 1,500 varieties have been named, and 

 about nine hundred had some time back been cultivated 

 in the gardens of the Horticultural Society. The best 



