DISEASES, INSECTS, CASUALTIES, ETC. 541 



with, green turf or straw, and the ridge finishe 1 with a foot or more 

 of soil to keep out the frost, in the same manner as is done in keeping 

 potatoes. By this mode they keep perfectly ; but it is evidently better 

 adapted for a market, gardener who sells his pro luce in lar^e quantities, 

 than for a gentleman's gardener or amateur. For all who require small 

 quantities of fruit almost daily, shelves or the cellar-floor are to be 

 preferred during the winter, and jars during the spring and summer 

 months. 



The French crab, the Northern Greening, and various other long- 

 keeping sorts, may be preserved in cellars, on a large scale, in dry sand 

 or in ridges, or on a small scale in jars kept in cellars, for two years or 

 upwards. The French crab may also be kept on shelves in a garret 

 for two years ; but by this mode it is always more or less shrivelled. 

 What is termed the sweating of apples consists in covering them with 

 short grass, aftermath hay, mats, or blankets, or any similar covering, so 

 as to excite a degree of fermentation, the heat produced by which 

 expands the water in the apple, and causes it to exude through the 

 pores of the skin. This takes place sooner or later, according to the 

 temperature of the atmosphere, but generally, in a fruit-cellar at 40, 

 in the course of a week or ten days, after which the apples are wiped, 

 and being thus deprived of a portion of their moisture, it is thought 

 they will keep better. This may be true where they are kept on shelves 

 exposed to a change of air ; but the natural moisture of the apple is no 

 impediment to its keeping in any situation where the air and the tem- 

 perature are not, or but very slightly, changed. 



Diseases , Insects, Casualties, fyc. No tree is more subject to the 

 canker than the apple, and particularly some kinds, such as the Ribston 

 pippin, Hawthornden, &c. In practice it is wise, if possible, to avoid 

 planting any varieties that manifest a peculiar tendency to canker. 

 This disease may possibly be prevented, but it can hardly be cured. 

 The most active producing causes are a bad wet subsoil, rich manures, 

 cropping and digging round the roots, an ungenial climate, and pro- 

 bably fungi on the leaves or young wood, and general debility. All 

 such predisposing causes must be avoided and their contraries secured, 

 and canker will seldom appear, or assume a virulent form if it does. 

 The first speck of it should be cut out as soon as it appears, as by 

 some it is held to be infectious, and it certainly has a tendency to 

 spread. To facilitate the ripening of the wood in a bad climate, 

 nothing is better than to prevent the tree from making much wood to 

 ripen ; and this may be effected by keeping the soil poor rather than 

 rich, by planting on hillocks above the surface, and by never stirring 

 the soil over the roots more than an inch or two in depth. The woolly 

 aphis, or American blight, is the most injurious insect that infests the 

 apple-tree, but it is also that which is most easily destroyed. This is 

 effected by washing the parts with diluted sulphuric acid; which is 

 formed by mixing | oz. by measure of the sulphuric acid of the shops 

 with 7J oz. of water. It should be rubbed into the parts affected by 

 means of a piece of rag tied to a stick, the operator taking care not to 

 let it touch his clothes. The same mixture applied all over the bark 



