8 



APP 



APP 



fruit. The jar is now to be clos- 

 ed and placed in a dry situation, 

 as cool as possible, but entirely 

 free iVotn frost. Some assert that 

 apples may be kept in casks 

 through the winter in a chamber 

 or garret, by being merely cover- 

 ed with linen cloths. Apples 

 which are intended to be preserv- 

 ed for winter's use should be suf- 

 fered to hang on the tree as long 

 as they are safe from frosts. 



A letter from Ebenezer Preble, 

 Esq. published in the Massachu- 

 setts Agricultural Repository, Vol. 

 iv. No. I. p. 84, contains the fol- 

 lowing instructions, relative to 

 gathering and preserving fruit. 



" The general method of gather- 

 ing apples for cider, is, shaking the 

 tree, and thrashing the branches 

 with poles. The former will an- 

 swer when the fruit is at maturity ; 

 they will then drop without injury 

 to the buds. Poles should never 

 be used, but with a hook at the 

 end covered with cloth or matts to 

 prevent wounding the bark ; they 

 then serve to shake the small 

 limbs. Particular attention is re- 

 quired in gathering winter fruit. 

 They should be taken in the hand, 

 the fingers placed at the foot stalk, 

 and by bending it upwards the 

 fruit is gathered with ease, and 

 without injury ; they should be re- 

 moved from the gathering baskets 

 with great care," &c. The same 

 writer says, "The injudicious me- 

 thod practised in gathering fruit is 

 more destructive in its consequen- 

 ces, than is generally understood ; 

 the blossom buds of the succeed- 

 ing year are placed at the side of 

 the foot stalk of the fruit, and if 

 the spurs are broken, no fruit on 



that part will be produced the next- 

 season." See Orchard. 



APPLE TREE, pyrus malus, a 

 well known fruit tree of great im- 

 portance to mankind. The way 

 to propagate them is, by sowing 

 the pomace from cydermills, dig- 

 ging, or hoeing it into the earth in 

 autumn. The young plants will 

 be up in the following spring, and 

 the next autumn, they should be 

 transplanted from the seed bed into 

 the nursery, in rows from two to 

 three feet apart, and one foot in 

 the rows where the ground has 

 been fitted to receive them. The 

 ground for a nursery should not be 

 very rich, but mellow, and well 

 pulverized, and cleared of the roots 

 and seeds of weeds. It is a good 

 rule. That the young trees, at their 

 final transplanting into orchards, 

 should not be put into poorer, but 

 rather into richer ground, than 

 that to which they have been ac- 

 customed. For by not finding 

 their usual supply of nourishment, 

 they will be stinted in their growth, 

 and never become good trees. 



It is said, that when an apple- 

 tree has become barren, its fruit- 

 fulness may be renewed by strip- 

 ping off all the bark from its body, 

 and from some part of the largest 

 limbs ; and that this operation 

 must be performed at the time of 

 the summer solstice. 



The following has been found 

 by experience to be an excellent 

 mode of setting out apple trees, 

 and other fruit trees on a light 

 soil. 



Dig a hole sufficiently large to 

 prevent the root of the tree, when 

 it is to be transplanted from being 

 doubled or placed in an unnatural 



