320 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



28. Green Newtown Pippin. — Tree spreading, wood 

 slender and slow growing ; ripens early, making it often 

 troublesome for nurserymen to procure buds fit for late 

 work; not subject to frost-blight. The tree requires vigor- 

 ous cultivation to redeem it from a feeble growth ; the bark 

 is inclined to crack on the branches and scale up, and when 

 once roughened it is difficult ever again to make them 

 smooth. Late coming into bearing, bears abundantly every 

 other year. They should never be grafted on the root ; 

 they should be budded on strong healthy stocks and high 

 up in order to do well. Fruit large, green, changing to 

 yellow when dead-ripe ; flesh firm, breaking ; flavor very 

 rich. Ripe from February to May. This apple is culti- 

 vated in extraordinary abundance at the East both for 

 home and foreign markets. They sell in London, at six- 

 pence a piece. The farm of R. L. Pell contains 2,000 bear- 

 ing trees of this variety ; a note descriptive of which we 

 give from Downing : 



" One of the finest orchards in America is that of Pell- 

 ham farm, at Esopus, on the Hudson. It is no less remark- 

 able for the beauty and high flavor of its fruit, than the 

 constant productiveness of trees. The proprietor, R. L. Pell, 

 Esq., has kindly furnished us with some notes of his experi- 

 ments on fruit-trees, and we subjoin the following highly 

 interesting one on the apple. 



" ' For several years past, I have been experiment- 

 ing on the apple, having an orchard of 2,000 bearing 

 Newtown Pippin-trees. I found it very unprofitable to 

 wait for what is termed the 'bearing year,' and it 

 has been my aim to assist nature, so as to enable the 

 trees to bear every year. I have noticed that from the 

 excessive productiveness of this tree, it requires the inter- 

 mediate year to recover itself — to extract from the earth 

 and the atmosphere the materials to enable it to produce 

 again. This it is not able to do, unassisted by art, while it 

 is loaded with fruit, and the intervening year is lost ; if, 



