398 f Assembly 



occupied by the lower portion of the upper Silurian rocks, on 

 which the rich soils of this part of the State rest and from which 

 they are generally formed. The fruit is larger and more beauti- 

 ful, but inferior (it is said) in that high flavor which distinguish- 

 es the Atlantic apples. 



The best apples sell in New -York for three or four dollars a 

 barrel, and in London for nine dollars a barrel. Nearly two 

 hundred varieties of apples as stated by the American Pomolo- 

 gists, are cultivated in the United States. The first conventions 

 held by the American Institute had, and keep in view, a classifi- 

 cation and nomenclature of the fruits. 



In the United States also, as elsewhere, the apple-trees natur- 

 ally yield a heavy crop every second year. But Mr. Pell — the 

 owner of one of the finest orchards in America — (Yes ! he might 

 have added in the world,) on the River (banks of) Hudson, has 

 recently been investigating whether an annual crop might not be 

 secured from his valuable Newtown Pippin trees, of which he has 

 two thousand in full bearing. (He should have said twenty thou- 

 sand trees bearing and to bear.) His experiments, we are told, 

 were perfectly successful ; only he had begun to apprehend that 

 the life ol his trees might be shortened by this course. Should 

 this be the case, it will still, probably, be more profitable to have 

 a succession of new trees, than to gather a crop only every second 

 year. Mr. Pell cultivates his orchard-grounds as if there were 

 no trees upon them, and raises grain of every kind except rye; 

 which crop, strange to say, he finds so injurious, that he believes 

 that three successive crops of it would destroy any orchard which 

 is less than twenty years old. This is a physiological fact as yet 

 incapable of being explained, but well deserving of scientific in- 

 vestigation. 



Stephens, in his Book of the Farm, gives the following state- 

 ment, which we take from him with much pleasure. For exam- 

 ple : 5 pound turnips at 7 inches asunder, give a crop of 57 tons 

 and 12^ cwt., whereas the same weight of turnip at 11 inches 

 apart, gives only a little more than 47 tons. Now how easy it is 

 for careless people to thin out the plants to 11 instead of 9 inches, 

 and yet, by so doing, no less than 10^ tons are saciificc-u. Again, 

 a difference of only one pound in each turnip — from 5 to 1 pounds 



