148 FRUIT GARDEN. 



and decay of some of the more fugitive varieties. All 

 the fruit intended for keeping should be plucked with 

 the hand, or with such an implement as the fruit-gatherer 

 invented by Mr. Saul, of Lancaster. For the finer des- 

 sert fruits the shelves should be made of hard wood, not 

 of fir, and the fruit should be laid upon cartridge or 

 WTiting paper, to prevent its imbibing any taint from 

 the wood. The kitchen fruit may be kept in layers two 

 or three deep, but not in heaps, and should be occasion- 

 ally examined, when decaying fruit is to be removed. 

 The siveating of apples and pears, formerly much prac- 

 ticed, is now abandoned, as being attended with no use- 

 ful effects. 



In the United States, this most valuable of all fruits 

 is of universal culture, although it attains to highest per- 

 fection in the Middle and some of the Northern States. 

 The catalogue of the apple of the London Horticultural 

 Society, including no less than 1,400 varieties, shows an 

 immense increase since the days of Pliny, when only 22 

 were named. Of the kinds which have been introduced 

 into the United States from abroad,, many of great 

 value are found in various parts of the co-untry : the fol- 

 lowing have been pronounced of the highest merit by 

 the National Congress of Fruit-growers held at the City 

 of New York in 1848: Early Harvest, Large Yellow 

 Bough, American Summer Pearmain, Summer Rose, 

 Early Strawberry, Gravenstein, Fall Pippin, Rhode 

 Island Greening, Baldwin, Roxbury Russet ; and, for 

 'particular localities — Yellow Belle Fleur, Esopus Spitz- 

 enburg, Newtown Pippin ; to which was added, at a 

 subsequent meeting of the same body, the White Seek- 

 no-fuTther, F^meuse, Porter, Hubbardstown, Nonsuch, 

 Winesap, Lady Apple, Danver's Winter Sweet, Wine 



