INTRODUCTION. 



We come with a handful of apple-seeds red, 



To plaut with the spade in a deep mellow bed : 



When tempests of winter, in fury sweep by, 



On earth's gelid bosom the tiny seeds lie. EDWARDS. 



APPLES of some varieties are cultivated successfully over 

 a greater breadth of country than any other fruit. No oth- 

 er trees can be relied upon for a regular supply of choice 

 fruit every year, for a great number of years, with more 

 certainty of a crop, than apple-trees. On every hill and in 

 every valley, on every plain and mountain between the cold 

 and backward localities of Maine and Canada, to the ex- 

 treme border of the Golden State, apple-trees, if correctly 

 propagated and properly managed, will not fail to reward 

 the tiller of the soil with abundant crops. More than this, 

 there is no other kind of fruit cultivated that can be made 

 to mature during such a long succession of months as the 

 apple. And then the almost unlimited variety as to the 

 taste and quality of fruit, constitutes another consideration 

 of transcendent importance. We have varieties which are 

 fully ripe and delicious before the last days of rosy summer 

 have faded away, and a regular succession afterwards of 

 choice varieties that are in season until there is an encour- 

 aging promise of another crop. Apples are one of the 

 greatest luxuries that people can depend upon as a regular 

 article of food. They are excellent while in a crude state, 

 and superb when cooked in a score of different ways. 

 Adults like them, and children love them. All kinds of 



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