SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 



We herewith give space to a large part of a bulletin issued by 

 the Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station entitled ''Apples 

 of the Fameuse Type." Our fruit growers will find this history 

 and description very, interesting, as apples of this type are 

 amongst our most profitable for the home market. They are 

 early and abundant bearers with many good qualities and few 

 defects except the liability to attacks of the apple scab. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



The second revision of Downing's "Fruits and Fruit Trees of 

 America," which is the standard work on descriptive pomology 

 for America, names 1,856 varieties of apples. This list was pub- 

 lished in 1872, since which time there have undoubtedly been 

 some hundreds of varieties introduced. In 1892 Bailey made a 

 list of the apples offered in nurserymen's catalogues in the 

 United States and Canada, and found that there were 878 varie- 

 ties then named, propagated and held for sale. 



Besides the varieties sold by the nurserymen at any given time, 

 there are always manv m.ore not generally distributed but kept, 

 coddled and prized in private collections, in small neighborhoods, 

 or in out-of-the-way places. It seems a very moderate estimate, 

 therefore, to say that there are 1,000 different kinds of apples in 

 commercial circulation on this continent to-day, that there are 

 over 2,000 varieties described in contemporary literature, and 

 that there have been more than 3,000 separate sorts named and 

 propagated in America within the period covered by our brief 

 pomological history. 



The impossibility of any man's knowing all varieties of apples 

 will be evident from the foregoing considerations. These thou- 



