APPLE. 49 



retain their flavour. Tusser tells us in his " Points of 

 Good Husbandry." 



" Fruit gathered too timelie, will taste of the wood, 

 Will shrink and be bitter, and seldome prone good : 

 So fruit that is shaken, or beat off a tree, 

 With brusing in falling, soon faultie will be." 



He adds, 



" The moon in the wane, gather fruit for to last, 

 But winter fruit gather when Michel is past." 



We have found the wood of old apple-trees, when used 

 as a fuel, produce a most agreeable perfume. 



The various diseases to which the apple-tree is subject, 

 have occupied the attention and the pen of some of our 

 greatest naturalists, as well as many of our eminent prac- 

 tical gardeners. Dr. John Hill considered the blight on 

 trees to be occasioned by debility or ill-health. Animals 

 of different species are found to engender different kinds 

 of insects, particularly where cleanliness is not attended 

 to. Trees, according to their kinds, attract different 

 blights : our endeavours, therefore, would be in vain to 

 avoid the blight affecting the leaves and blossoms of large 

 trees; but as the trunk and branches of the apple-tree are 

 often injured, and sometimes destroyed, by animalculae, 

 an attention to the cleanliness of these trees cannot fail 

 of being beneficial to their growth. It has therefore oc- 

 curred to us, from observations and experiments -made 

 since compiling this work, that if the trunks of the apple- 

 trees were rubbed with the leaves and young shoots of the 

 elder, to which every kind of blight has an antipathy, those 

 injurious, although minute insects, would not only be de- 

 stroyed, but it would prevent their fixing themselves on 

 these trees. As this is a matter of importance to the pub- 

 lic, we shall feel obliged by the remarks of any gentlemen 

 who may be disposed to try the experiment. Brimstone 



