166 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



Of these, Kenrick's and Dovvning's are_at present, the best 

 American treatises. 



GATHERING AND PRESERVING. For immediate use apples 

 may be shaken from the tree. For winter consumption or 

 packing for market, they should be carefully picked by hand 

 with the aid of ladders, to avoid bruising the fruit and injur- 

 ing the limbs. To preserve apples, the best method is to lay 

 them carefully into tight barrels or boxes, immediately after 

 picking with a thin layer of perfectly dry chaff on the bottom; 

 and after being lightly shaken together, another layer of 

 chaff on the top may be added, though this is,not essential. 

 They may then be tightly headed or covered so as to e xclude 

 the air. The boxes or barrels should then be put away into 

 a dry place, and kept as cold as possible, above the freezing 

 point. But if slightly frozen, they will not be injured if suf- 

 fered to remain unpacked till the frost leaves them. Thus 

 managed they will keep as long as they are capable of preser- 

 vation. Bins in the cellar are good for ordinary use if close- 

 ly covered. If exposed to the air, warmth or moisture, ap- 

 ples soon decay. If too dry, they wilt and become tasteless. 

 They are sometimes buried in the earth like potatoes, but 

 this is very liable to impair the flavor and give them an earthly 

 taste ; and they seldom keep so well after removal in the 

 spring as when they have been stored in barrels. 



FOR FARM STOCK apples are extremely profitable, and the 

 better the quality of fruit the more valuable are they for this 

 object. A variety of both sweet and sub-acid should be cul- 

 tivated. The sacharine matter of the apple is the principal 

 nutritive property and this abounds in some kinds of the sub- 

 acid. Animals like a change in their food as well as man, 

 and both these varieties should, therefore, be fed to them alter- 

 nately. When the soil and climate are adapted to them, we 

 have no doubt that apples for stock, can be grown cheaper than 

 any other kind of food, excepting grass. Hogs have been 

 often fatted upon them with an occasional change to grain ; 

 and when fed to horses, neat cattle, and sheep with hay, they 

 are almost equivalent to roots. That tree must be badly cul- 

 tivated which in ten years after planting will not produce five 

 bushels of apples ; and these, at ten cents a bushel, give an 

 annual revenue of fifty cents a tree, or twenty dollars per acre 

 for stock-feeding alone. At twenty years old, the tree will 

 double that product, casualties excepted, and as this estimate 

 is based on their least valuable use, an increased profit, of 

 course may be anticipated from their conversion to other 



