341 



The following are notes from Mr. John M. Ives' essay on 

 the cultivation of fruit, the apple being under consideration 

 this evening. 



The apple is emphatically the farmer's fruit. Mr. Ives 

 had occasion to make a statement in a Report to the Essex 

 Agricultural Society, some ten years ago, that if we should 

 pay more attention to those varieties of the apple, which are 

 indigenous, or have been produced on our soils, that apples 

 can be raised with more certainty of a crop than can pears. 

 However strange it may appear, the best apples in our mar- 

 ket have been those sorts, which were first produced in our 

 region. The truthfulness of this statement received corrob- 

 oration from what Henry Ward Beecher said in an article 

 on the cultivation of the apple, that the best apples in the 

 West were those varieties which originated in the great val- 

 ley of the West. With us, the Hubbardston Nonesuch, 

 Baldwin, Roxbury Russet, Mother, Porter, Williams' Favor- 

 ite, Danvers Winter Sweet, are among the best fruits, all 

 of them of Massachusetts origin. The Newton Pippin, Eso- 

 pus Spitzenberg, Red Doctor, Pinnock's Red Winter and 

 Red Gilliflower which are first rate in their native soils are, 

 when grown upon our own soils, inferior to the Hubbard- 

 ston Nonesuch, Minister, Baldwin, Mother, &g., &g. Such 

 is the case too with most foreign varieties, though the 

 Gravenstein of Germany, docs equally well with many of 

 our native sorts, and the English Ribstone Pippin does suc- 

 ceed occasionally in our deep and rich soils. 



Much importance should be attached to the synonymy of 

 fruits, because fruits and apples particularly, are known, 

 under so many local names. Thus the Lyscom is known 

 in. Worcester as Mathis' Stripe, as Osgood's Favorite in 

 Salem, and as Nonpareil and Lady Cap in the North part 

 of Essex County. 



