ROSACEiE. 125 



iirouud tlie plajitation to protect the young growtli, he went on to new fields, 

 and as years passed on he returned to exact jjayinent from those who had 

 settled on tlie lands. He was a benevolent, inoffensive man, distributing 

 religious books among the people with whom he put nji at night. His 

 name was Jonathan Chapman. He was born in Boston in 1775. Very little 

 was known about him. On account of his strange enijiluyincnt lie received 

 the name of Johnny Apple-seed. 



In the door-yard of Delos Hotchkiss, at Cheshire, Conn., stands an apple- 

 tree which is supposed to be the oldest, largest, and most fruitful in New 

 England. It is the last survivor of the orchard which was set out by the first 

 settlers of that neighborhood, and popular belief fixes its age at 180 years. 

 The tree is sixty feet high, and the tips of its outermost branches are <»ne 

 hundred and four feet apart. Mr. Hotchkiss affirms that lie lias picked \27) 

 bushels of sound apples from it in a single year. 



Use. — The apple must be regarded as foremost among tbo fruits of the 

 temperate zone. No other fruit is so agreeable to all palates, and so generally 

 used. There are so many ways in which it serves man, and they are so geuer 

 ally known, that it seems su])erHuous to attempt to name them. A moderately - 

 sized apple, of any variety, either sweet or sub-acid, is a very popular fruit for 

 dessert. For pies, puddings, dumplings, and sauces it should be sour <>r tart. 

 The farmers of Pennsylvania make ''apple butter" by boiling sliced apples to 

 a pulp in new cider. In the same manner apples are cooked in sweet wine in 

 France, and the preparation is called raisine. Apple juice, when fermented, is 

 cider, and forms a common table drink among farmers, as wine does in the 

 wine-making districts of France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. \'erjuice is the 

 fermented juice of the crab apple. Cider when exposed to the air soon be- 

 comes sour or hard, from the formation in it of lactic acid. 



Apples are preserved by drying them in the sun. In late years large quan- 

 tities have been dried by steam heat. Apples form an important food, and 

 large (Quantities are exported to tropical and subtropical countries. 



The wood of the apple-tree is close-grained, hard, and it takes a polish. It 

 is valuable for turners and cabinet-makers, and is largely used in tlie man- 

 ufacture of shoemakers' lasts. 



2. P. communis, L. (Pear.) Stem from 20 to 40 feet in height, and from 

 8 inches to 20 in diameter, branching; the branching is upriglit, forming 

 a pyramidal head. Leaves ovate, lanceolate, acute, sometimes acuminate, 

 somewhat crenate, serrate, glabrous. Flowers in corymbs, white and fragrant, 

 appearing in May. Fruit pyriform, ripening from July to ()cto])er. Carjx'ls 

 2-seeded. 



The number of varieties of this tree is very great. There is no single fruit 

 upon which more care and expense has been lavished than upon the pear. The 

 nurserymen in the United States catalogue about 3,000 varieties, each one of 

 which is represented to possess excellencies to recommend it to cultivators; 

 but the pear fanciers of France and Belgium publish lists of far greater num- 

 bers. It is related of a single nurseryman in Belgium that he had growing at 

 one time 80,000 seedlings for the purj)ose of developing new varieties. 



The varieties have reference to the character of the fruit alone. 



Genrp-aphij. — The geographical zone of the ])ear is from 35° to 55° north 

 latitude. It is native to China, Syria, Persia, central and northern Kurope. 

 and Great Britain. It was l»rought by colonists to northeast America. It 

 thrives wherever the apple Hourishes, l)Ut arrives at its maximum excellence 

 in size and flavor in Belgium and northern France. 



