428 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



rare as the world imagines. Out of eighty-seven 

 varieties experimented with in Oregon, no fewer than 

 fifty-nine were found to be self-sterile. The well- 

 known yellow Newtown is fertile to its own pollen, 

 but it was found that it was immensely improved by 

 a cross from the next tree of another kind. We 

 learn, from the Oregon report, that we owe to the 

 bee every apple we get from Gravenstein, King of 

 Tompkins, Monmouth Pippin, Summer Pearmain, and 

 many others. Certainly many of next year's apples 

 are contained in our bar-frame hives, and in the 

 skeps of the cottagers. 



Nearly all the apples of commerce come from 

 abroad, from Southern Tasmania, winter-bound British 

 Columbia, New South Wales, Victoria, anywhere ex- 

 cept our own famous apple counties. Yet not in 

 a ship-load of barrels will you ever taste an apple 

 that nearly approaches, in flavour and ecstasy of 

 juice, any one of a score of English apples grown 

 at home. The old picturesque orchards, that look 

 so nice in the landscapes of our artists, are, in a 

 general way, treated very much like blackberry 

 hedges, as a part of the farm that gratuitously 

 presents us every year, or, perhaps, every other year, 

 with a quantity of enjoyable fruit, good for cider or 

 for home consumption, but not as a marketable crop. 

 In a good year they are too cheap, in a bad year 

 too scarce to be worth taking much trouble about, 

 at any rate to the extent of carefully grading them, 

 packing them scientifically, and getting them without 

 waste to the tables of the town epicures. If these 

 want to know what Devonshire apples are like, they 

 must come out here, and pick them up under the 



