STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 39 



any one to see that the demand for crab-apples can never be 

 extensive enough to consume a fourth part of the product of 

 all the trees which have been set. 



What is to be done with them, then, it may be asked? Use 

 them for cider, some one says, and sell the cider for 50 cents 

 per gallon. Of late years we have not heard anything about 

 selling crab-apple cider at fifty cents per gallon. I presume 

 it would sell at about the same price as other cider. But, 

 suppose the crab-apples be made into cider. Imagine a man 

 picking crab-apples for cider ! Crab-apples cling tenaciously 

 to the tree. They seldom fall off, high winds do not blow 

 them off; a man in the top of the tree, shaking the tree vig- 

 orously, makes slow headway in shaking them off. In short, 

 crab-apples have to be picked off. They are very small in 

 size. It requires hundreds of them to fill a bushel basket. If 

 a man were given all the crab-apples for cider making that he 

 could pick during the whole autumn, he would not become 

 rich ftist enough to cause his neighbors to envy him at all. But 

 when a man is obliged to raise as well as to gather them, then 

 we begin to feel like sympathizing with him regarding his 

 hard lot in life. Yet, for an opportunity to do this very thing 

 there are many who seem to be taking great pains, purchas- 

 ing trees, carefully attending them and giving them the use 

 of their land ; and for what ? just to secure a harvest that is 

 not worth harvesting. 



It seems as though it were about time for farmers and fruit 

 growers to stop buying crab-apple trees to set for orchards. 

 Already there are more crab-trees growing than it will be 

 possible to advantageously dispose of the fruit. It is all well 

 enough for any one to set one or two crab-apple trees* to 

 secure fruit for his own use, and then when the trees begin 

 to bear freely he will have as much crab fruit as he can 

 profitably dispose of. 



Some persons in setting crab-trees have thought if the fruit 

 did not sell to advantage, that they could easily have the 

 trees grafted to other varieties. This can be done, but there 

 i§ considerable risk attending it, as our standard varieties of 



