MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



and gives it, with its brilliant red cheek, a 

 falsified promise of excellence. I have found 

 in the books no illustration of this peculiar 

 distemper which attacks the Lady apple; but 

 in my orchard, in the month of November, the 

 illustrations abound. 



The Esopus Spitzenberg, that red, spicy bit 

 of apple-flesh, had its representatives among 

 the old trees which came under my care; I 

 may give it the credit of showing grateful cog- 

 nizance of the labor bestowed. The trees 

 thrived; they are thrifty now; the bloom is 

 like that of a gigantic, out-spread Weigelia. 

 The fruit too (such as the curculip spares), 

 is full and round; but there is not a specimen 

 of it which is not bored through by the inev- 

 itable grub of the apple-moth. 



Besides the varieties I have particularized, 

 there were the Tallman and Pound Sweetings 

 sparsely represented; and the Rhode Island 

 Greening, which I will fairly admit, has made 

 a better struggle against adverse influences, 

 than any winter fruit I have named. So fair 

 a struggle, indeed, that if I could only forego 

 the visitations of the curculio and of the moth, 

 I might hope for an old-time fulness of crop. 

 The Strawberry apple, by reason, I think, of 

 its early maturity (and the same is true of the 



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