HANDLING OF APPLES. 29 



Mr. Kinney of Worcester. You say you carefully pick 

 up your apples, and then take them to your cellar in a cart. 

 What do you mean by that? 



Mr. Gold. I find no way of transporting apples more 

 safely than in baskets placed in a common ox-cart carefully 

 driven. Sometimes they are taken in a wagon with springs ; 

 but that jolts them quite as much as a cart. A part of the 

 load is borne on the necks of the cattle. I do not empty 

 them into the body of the cart, and take them out again in 

 the baskets. It is very easy to have as many baskets as we 

 can set in the cart, and duplicate them, so that we transport 

 them in that way. Most of our fields are such that a cart is 

 the most ready means of transportation. We can shin around 

 the rocks better with that than with any other vehicle, and 

 we have a great deal of it to do. I have found no way to 

 transport them, with less bruises, than that. 



Question. How many years do you plough round your 

 trees, after they are set out? 



Mr. Gold. I have left that open, to be decided by circum- 

 stances. If the field is anything of a side-hill, the ploughing 

 cannot be continued, as I said, any length of time, without 

 great detriment to the soil, from its washing away. As soon 

 as the vegetable matter in the turf, that holds the earth 

 together, is decayed, it will wash, so as to prove fatal to the 

 fertility of the soil. If it is level ground, where there can be 

 no washing, there would seem to be no objection to culture 

 for a number of years, — encouraging the growth of roots near 

 the surface, however. 



Question. When it has been seeded down, can it be cul- 

 tivated again ? 



Mr. Gold. I should prefer the practice of top-dressing, 

 and keeping up the fertility in that way, to ploughing again. 

 As I remarked, ploughing gives a temporary start to the 

 trees, usually ; but it is merely temporary, and then they are 

 worse for it than before. 



Question. You spoke of the varieties of apples you would 

 select. I would like to ask what the nature of your soil is, 

 where you have these varieties ? 



Mr. Gold. Well, sir, we are on the southern limit of the 

 Green Mountain range. It is what we call a loamy soil. It 



