APPLE B E R R Y- A P S E U D E S. 



For cider. Coccagee ; Cyder sop; Damelot ; 

 yellow eyelet; Glasbury; Gregoire ; hard pippin; 

 Hogshead ; House ; John apple ; Norman styre. 



'APPLE BERRY (Smith). Otherwise called by 

 botanists JBi/lardiera scandens, a genus of climbing 

 plants introduced from Australia. Linnaan class 

 and order Pentandria Afonogynia ; natural order 

 Pittosporcee. Generic character : calyx five-cleft, 

 coloured ; corolla connivent, forming a tube ; stigma, 

 two-lobed ; berry, two-celled with many seeds ; seed 

 smooth. 



APRICOT. A well known wall fruit. Linnaean 

 class and order, Icosandria Monogi/nia ; natural 

 order Rosacece. Generic character: calyx somewhat 

 boll-shaped, five-cleft, deciduous ; corolla five-pe- 

 taled, roundish, inserted in the calyx; stamens at- 

 tached to the opening of calyx ; filaments like threads ; 

 anthers erect, egg-rounded, two-celled ; style simple ; 

 stigma headed ; drupe roundish, smooth, with a 

 longitudinal furrow; nut compressed, suture pro- 

 minent, smooth ; embryo inverted, seedjeaves flesh)'. 



The fruit has its name (A. praecox) from the cir- 

 cumstance of its ripening early in summer. It is one 

 of our earliest flowering trees, and the first wall fruit 

 that comes to table. Although commonly trained 

 to walls, a variety, called the Breda, ripens pretty 

 well, in the latitude of London, on standards in the 

 open ground, if planted in a warm soil and sheltered 

 situation. The necessity, as well as the custom, of 

 making the apricot a wall tree, is attended with two 

 disadvantages, viz. the heat and shelter of the wall 

 brings out the flowers so early that they are in 

 jeopardy from night frosts ; and the branches being 

 all trained on a vertical plane, induces an inconve- 

 nient growth of breastwood, which, without constant 

 attention of the manager, is a waste of vigour, and 

 injurious to the regular form of the tree. 



To secure, however, the health and beauty and 

 fruitfulness of this tree, moderate growth must be 

 induced by the system of disbudding, as recom- 

 mended in treating of dwarf-apple trees. The habit 

 of the tree is to produce strong shoots from the stem 

 and lower parts of the branches. This, though a 

 lucky circumstance in a tree trained in the fan manner, 

 occasions constant inspection and labour to prevent 

 them shooting into large unfertile branchlets, which 

 must be, either in the summer or winter pruning, cut 

 away. If moderate growth be obtained by stopping 

 irregular growth, the roots will never become too 

 powerful for the head ; and the well-placed summer 

 shoots being carefully laid-in close to the wall, in every 

 vacantpart, abundance of bearing wood will be obtained 

 to give flowers and fruit in every favourable season. 



The apricot tree is one of those that produces 

 short shoots, commonly called spurs ; those are 

 almost always fruitful ; and should be preserved 

 by the pruner, while they are yet but a moderate 

 distance from the face of the wall. When these, 

 however, gain an unsightly length, they should be 

 displaced ; because the safety of the flowers and 

 maturity of the fruit, depends on their closeness to 

 the wall. The shoots of the past year, provided 

 they are of moderate size and well ripened, bear in 

 this, the finest fruit: and there is one peculiarity 

 respecting these shoots .which deserves attention. If 

 any shoot continues to advance till late in the sum- 

 mer, it is rarely fruitful : but if stopped some time 

 before the growth naturally ceases, the buds on its 

 lower part will be formed into flowers ; buUf stopped 



NAT. HIST. VOL. I. ; 



177 



too soon, these same buds will burst into tufts of 

 leaves only. 



Except for standards or riders, this tree is usually 

 budded near the surface of the ground, for the purpose 

 of being trained in the fan manner ; which, for general 

 purposes, is certainly the most eligible : other modes 

 of training, however, may be adopted, viz. with an 

 upright principal stem and horizontal branches ; or 

 with a tall upright stem, with the branches trained 

 downwards. These unnatural positions of the 

 branches, it may be observed, are only means of 

 moderating the growth to induce fertility. 



The apricot is commonly budded on plum stocks ; 

 some kinds, as the moorpark, are worked on their 

 own stocks, i. e. stocks raised from apricot kernel?. 

 If the young trees be intended for riders or standards 

 they should be budded on the Saint Julian plum. 



The tree is readily injured by wounds : and therefore 

 the utmost care should be observed that no necessity 

 arise for taking off large limbs. The heartwood is 

 not durable, and if long exposed to air, as in a large 

 wound it must be, it quickly rots and brings on 

 general decay. For this and other reasons, as soon 

 as the tree attains its natural size, or has filled the 

 space assigned to it, every expedient should be 

 practised to keep it stationary ; no excess of growth 

 being allowed, except only the ordinary succession 

 of young wood for bearing. 



The apricot, like other icosandrious plants, is apt 

 to blossom too early in the spring, and on this 

 account requires at that time some kind of shelter 

 from night frosts. Copings, projecting from four to 

 six inches over the face of the wall, are a great secu- 

 rity: or curtains of net, bunting, or light canvass, 

 fixed to the top, and let down every evening, defend 

 the flowers sufficiently ; and, moreover, may be used 

 for another purpose, too often neglected, viz. for 

 shading the flowers in the middle of the day from 

 hot sunshine, which very frequently destroys many 

 more flowers than are killed by frost in ordinary- 

 seasons. It is on this principle that the old common 

 custom of protecting the flowers with small twigs 

 of evergreen trees is so effectual. These twigs beiny 

 regularly stuck in between the upper branches and 

 the wall, hang drooping over the lower parts of the 

 tree; and remaining throughout the flowering and 

 setting season, act both as a shelter and a shade. 



This treatment is required by all early flowering 

 fruit trees, apricots, peaches, nectarines, and parti- 

 cularly plums and cherries, on south walls. Retarding 

 the flowering by every possible means is also a good 

 plan : and it may be observed of the apricot (as well 

 as morella cherries, plums, &c.), that, in the latitude 

 of London they do better on an eastern or western 

 aspect, than on one due south; not only because 

 the flowering is retarded, but also because the ripen- 

 ing fruit become too soon mealy on a south wall. 



The best varieties of the apricot are the Moorpark, 

 Breda, Masculine, and Brussels ; all which ripen in 

 the months of August and September. Besides their 

 value in the dessert, they are convertible into many 

 descriptions of confectionary ; and the green fruit 

 (necessarily thinned from the tree before stoning), 

 is useful for tarts. 



APSEUDES (Leach, Eupheus, Risso). A small 

 but remarkable British genus of Crustacea, belonging 

 to the order, Isopoda, and section, Heteropoda, having 

 seven pairs of legs, of which the second pair is very 

 large, dilated, and notched, somewhat like the fore 

 T 



