i8o HOW TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 



to produce fruit of the best sort. A half-starved 

 tree gives you half-developed fruit; the wood be- 

 comes knobby and the bark adheres too tightly. 

 However, judgment must be used in feeding, or 

 plant dyspepsia sets in. Very few trees will endure 

 rank manure, and a great many of them protest 

 against barn manure at all. Some of them prefer 

 muck and lime. Compost all the food, then place 

 it about the roots and later plow it under. The use 

 of lime is not as a direct manurial agent, but to help 

 decompose coarse food and make it fit for the plant 

 to receive and digest. 



With my present experience, if I were going into 

 the country to make a home, I should want the fol- 

 lowing list of apples: for early use I would select 

 the Red Astrachan, Primate, Yellow Transparent, 

 and Williams Favorite; for later ripening through 

 the fall months I would not feel contented without 

 Sherwood's Favorite, Wealthy, Gravenstein, Pounrl 

 Sweet, and Maiden's Blush ; then for winter I should 

 make sure of Baldwin, Danchy's Sweet, Delicious, 

 Hubbardston, Mclntosh, Mother, Northern Spy, 

 Rhode Island Greening, Stayman's Winesap, Wag- 

 ener, and King David ; Jonathan and Grimes Golden 

 I add for special localities, like western Virginia and 

 Colorado, where they are ideal. King and Newtown 

 Pippin are superb but too exacting in their demands 

 for general culture. 



Now let me reduce this list to fit it to a very small 

 home. Take Astrachan and Transparent for one 



