70 THE APPLE. 



a final racking should take place, when, should the cider not be perfectly 

 fine, about three-fourths of an ounce of isinglass should be dissolved in 

 the cider and poured in each barrel, which will render it perfectly clear. 

 It may be bottled now, or any period before the blossoming of the Apple 

 or afterwards, late in May. When bottling, fill the bottles within an 

 inch of the bottom of the cork, and allow the bottles to stand an hour 

 before the corks are driven. They should then be sealed and kept in a 

 cool cellar, with clean dry sand up to their necks, or laid on their sides 

 in boxes or bins, with the same between each layer. 



VAKIETIES. 



The varieties of the Apple at the present time are very numerous. 

 The garden of the Horticultural Society of London, which contains the 

 most complete collection of fruit in the world, enumerates now, 1845, 

 about 900 varieties, and nearly 1500 have been tested there. Of these 

 the larger proportion are of course inferior ; but it is only by comparison 

 in such an experimental garden that the value of the different varieties 

 for a certain climate can be fully ascertained. 



The European Apples generally are, in this climate, inferior to our 

 first-rate native sorts, though many of them are of high merit also with 

 us. There is much confusion in regard to names of Apples, and the 

 variation of fruits from soil, location, or other causes, makes it diificult 

 to identify the kinds, and until they are brought together and fruited on 

 the same ground the certainty of their nomenclature will not be estab- 

 lished. New varieties of Apples are constantly springing up in this 

 country from the seed, in favorable soils ; and these, when of superior 

 quality, may, as a general rule, be considered much more valuable for 

 orchard culture than foreign sorts, on account of their greater produc- 

 tiveness and longevity. Indeed every State has some fine Apples pecu- 

 liar to it, and it is therefore impossible in the present state of pomology 

 in this country to give a complete list of the finest Apples of the United 

 States. To do this will require time, and an extended and careful exa- 

 mination of their relative merits collected in one garden. The following 

 descriptions comprise all the finest American and foreign varieties yet 

 known in our gardens. 



CLASSIFICATION. 



The distinctive characters of fruits have, during the past quarter of a 

 century, become so much intermingled and hybridized that, after carefully 

 studying them, and comparing them with the orders of classification 

 adopted by authors, we have come to the conclusion that no definite 

 order can safely be made to embrace them. Forms, colors, growths, and 

 periods of ripening are so much interwoven and distributed as to defy 

 all arbitrary rules of classification, and hence we have without hesitation 

 abandoned it entirely, substituting in our work the simple order of the 

 alphabet as confined to names, believing such course will prove the most 

 available and useful. 



TERMS USED IN DESCRIBING APPLES. 



In identifying fruits, not only certain forms and features of the fruit 

 itself are desirable, to have a definite description under plain and iiitelli- 



