37° The Canadian Horticulturist. 



NORTHERN SPY APPLES. 



O kind of apple varies so much in quality as does the 

 Northern Spy. Ever since it began to be disseminated, 

 about forty years ago, it has required more thorough 

 manuring and more care in pruning than other varieties. 

 Because it is naturally an exceedingly thrifty-growing 

 variety there is a popular belief that it succeeds best on 

 poor soil so as to stint growth and induce early bearing. 

 But the Spy thus grown is not of the best quality. It blossoms too freely, sets 

 too much fruit, and unless the inside of the tree has been pruned, most of this 

 will be shaded and never be well colored. There is so much difference between 

 these poor immature specimens and the highly colored, large and delicious fruit 

 grown on well manured and well pruned trees as can be imagined. A stranger 

 to the fruit seeing these different specimens can hardly be persuaded that they 

 are of the same variety. 



The erect habit of the Northern Spy is probably the cause of its delay in 

 bearing. If while the tree is young its limbs are weighted at the ends so as to 

 cause them to bend down, the obstruction of sap will cause fruit buds to form 

 and fruit to set the following season. We once saw a curious illustration of this. 

 A young Northern Spy tree was located in a corner near a barn, where a snow- 

 drift piled over it, bending down many of its lower branches. So flexible were 

 they that they did not break ; but after the snow w r ent off these branches con- 

 tinued to grow horizontally with their ends bent down. Two years later these 

 branches fruited and continued to bear fruit regularly, thongh it was several 

 years before the upper part of the tree came into bearing. 



For regrafting old orchards lacking in vigor, there is no variety better than 

 the Northern Spy. It comes into bearing quickly under such conditions, and 

 bears large, well-colored fruit of the best quality. Such trees have, however, a 

 habit of bearing a very full crop one season and a light crop the next. Probably 

 this might be remedied by thinning the crop the years when the trees set the 

 fullest. — American Cultivator. 



Pickled Pears and Peaches. — Seven pounds of pears, 2^ pounds of 

 sugar, one quart of vinegar, one cupful of water, one ounce of cloves and one 

 of cinnamon. Boil vinegar, water, spice and sugar a few minutes, then put in 

 the fruit and cook till done. I use the same recipe for pickled peaches. Last 

 summer just before the peaches began to ripen, we had a quantity of wind-falls. 

 I made sweet pickles of the green fruit. ^Ye thought them fully as good for 

 pickles as ripe ones. — N. L. P. 



