254 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



should always be at hand some standard work on the culti- 

 vation of fruits. Of 'these, Kenrick's, Downing's and Hovey's 

 are at present the best American treatises. 



Gathering and preserving. For immediate use, apples 

 may be shaken from the tree. For winter consumption or 

 packing for market, they should be carefully picked by hand 

 with the aid of ladders, to avoid bruising the fruit and injur- 

 ing the limbs. To preserve apples, the best method is to lay 

 them carefully into tight barrels or boxes immediately after 

 picking, with a thin layer of perfectly dry chaff on the bottom ; 

 and after being lightly shaken together, another layer of 

 chaff on the top may be added, though this is not essential. 

 They may then be tightly headed or covered so as to exclude 

 the air. Then put the boxes or barrels away into a dry 

 place, and keep as cold as possible above the freezing point. 

 But if slightly frozen, they will not be injured i$ suffered to 

 remain unpacked till the frost leaves them. When thus 

 managed, they will keep as long as they are capable of pre- 

 servation. Bins in the cellar are good for ordinary use, if 

 closely covered. When exposed to the air, warmth or 

 moisture, apples soon decay. If too dry, they wilt and 

 become tasteless. They are sometimes buried in the earth 

 like potatoes, but this impairs the flavor and gives them an 

 earthy taste ; and they seldom keep so well after removal 

 in the spring as when they have been stored in barrels. 



For farm stock, apples are healthful and fattening, and 

 the better the quality of fruit the more valuable are they for 

 this object. A variety of both sweet and sub-acid should 

 be cultivated. The saccharine matter of the apple is essen- 

 tially the fattening property, and this abounds in some kinds 

 of the sub-acid. Animals like a change in their food as well 

 as man, and both sweet and sour may be fed to them alter- 

 nately. When the soil and climate are adapted to them, 

 food from apples can probably be more cheaply supplied to 

 stock in the northern States, than from any other plants of 

 artificial cultivation, excepting grass and clover. Swine 

 have been often fatted upon them with an occasional change 

 to grain ; and when fed to horses, cattle and sheep, with hay, 

 they are almost equivalent to roots. That tree must be 

 badly cultivated, which in ten years after planting, will not 

 produce five bushels of apples in a season, and these at ten 

 cents a bushel give an annual revenue of fifty cents a tree, 

 or twenty dollars per acre for stock-feeding alone. At 

 twenty years old, the tree will double that product, casual- 



