ESSAY. 



APPLES. 



ESSAY BY JOSEPH HOW OF METHUEN. 



There having been no application for the premium for new- 

 variety of winter apples within the past year, there has been 

 no occasion for a meeting of the committee. Your chairman, 

 however, ventures to oifer a few remarks and suggestions from 

 his own experience and observation. The liberal premium of 

 $100 that has been offered for many years by the Essex Agri- 

 cultural Society for a new variety of winter apples equal to the 

 Baldwin or Roxbury Russet has not had the desired effect, for 

 no new variety has yet been produced which in the opinion 

 of the committee is equal to those varieties. Still we think 

 good is resulting from the offer, as it is creating much interest 

 and discussion not only in our own county but elsewhere. 

 We have repeatedly received letters from persons in and out 

 of our state saying they had seen our reports and were deeply 

 interested in the subject, and feel the importance of a new va- 

 riety of late keeping winter apples. A person from the state 

 of Maine wrote to me for scions for experiment in comparison 

 with other varieties, saying that he was scouring the country 

 for a variety of late keeping winter apples, and that he was in- 

 tending to sow a nursery in the hope of getting a new variety 

 from seedlings. He intends also to experiment on cross graft- 

 ing. That man is on the right track and good will most as- 

 suredly result from his efforts. We think there never was a 

 time when there was so much encouragement to produce apples 

 as the present, particularly winter apples for foreign markets. 

 The hard rocky soil of Essex County is particularly adapted to 

 produce hard, long keeping apples for that purpose. The 

 Baldwins are the best and most popular winter apples in New 



