18 CUE, COMMON" FETTITS. 



benefit of the proprietor and the community, while the 

 traveller has the pleasure of journeying along a shady 

 avenue, charming in due season to every sense, instead of 

 a bare unsightly highway, exposed to the full power of 

 sun and wind, and offering nothing of any kind to solace 

 or refresh. Pity that when legions of English tourists 

 annually enjoy and admire, none have yet been found to 

 import here a custom so worthy of imitation. Even there, 

 though, in some places, the abundance is greatly wasted 

 and the usefulness of the fruit limited from ignorance of 

 its capabilities ; for the present writer, struck on one 

 occasion with the quantities of large fine fruit blown down 

 in a breezy August, and left to rot under the road-side 

 trees near Frankfort, asked an inhabitant of the district 

 why they were not turned to account in some form of 

 cookery, and whether no use were ever made of them. 

 A look of astonishment greeted the inquiry. " Cook 

 them ? why, they are not ripe ! " was the reply, evidently 

 looked on as an all-sufficient one. " If a pound of sugar 

 were used to each apple," added the answerer, " it would 

 not make them fit for food ; and what use could be made 

 of them when the very pigs would not eat them ? indeed, 

 they would be poisoned if they did." Thinking it possi- 

 ble there might be some peculiarity in the fruit to account 

 for this prejudice, the experiment was tried of consigning 

 some of these identical fruits to an English cook, when, 

 made use of in the ordinary way, they proved most ex- 

 cellent. But of course the range of culinary application 

 is limited in a land where "A" never yet " was an apple- 

 pie," and where fruit puddings are an unintelligible 

 mystery. 



The White Spanish Eennet, a beautiful red-aud-yellow- 

 skinned dessert apple (though its gigantic size rivals the 

 largest kitchen fruit grown), and a near approach in 

 flavour to the famous Newtown Pippin, is said to be, 

 under the name of Camuesar, the national apple of Spain, 

 where it has been known from the earliest antiquity, but, 

 though greatly esteemed there, has been little cultivated 

 in England since its introduction here. The Italians too 

 have their favourite Ulalo di Carlo, the most celebrated of 



