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as high a price as the King in the British market. This apple is a good bearer, and 

 it is a mystery why so few trees of this kind are planted. 



The Eoxbury and the American Golden Eusset are two varieties very highly 

 valued by the commercial orchardist. The former, when well grown, is of a good 

 size and, when mature, of fairly good quality. Its great feature, however, is its 

 keeping qualities, owing to which it may be kept in our own fruit house or cellars 

 until March or April, and then shipped on to either home or foreign markets at the 

 time when other varieties are scarce and apples are high-priced. The American 

 Golden Eusset is about equally valuable as a market apple, but is inclined of late to 

 be somewhat affected by the apple scab, known to scientists as fusicladium dendnti- 

 cum; and, indeed, unless this can be overcome by means of copper sulphates or 

 hypersulphite of soda, will destroy many of our very best apples. 



The Cranberry Pippin is an apple that has of late highly commended itself to 

 me as a commercial apple. It is lai'ge, oblong, beautifully striped and splashed with 

 red, of a waxen lustre, and very crisp flesh. I find it sells at a very high price as a 

 fancy apple. The tree is a very rapid grower, and unless well pruned and treated 

 with potash fertilizers much of the fruit will be mishapen. I would include it in 

 our list. 



The Korthern Spy has a high reputation as a commercial apple. In quality it 

 is excelled by very few, and wheu clear and well grown is also a beautiful apple, but 

 of late I have found it particularly liable to spot. 



The Baldwin has had a wonderful run of popularity on account of its fine 

 appearance, large size under good cultivation, and enormous productiveness. But 

 of late it has not borne out its reputation in this regard, and some large orchai-ds of 

 this variety in southern Ontario or in western New York have been for several 

 yea]-8 almost barren. Then, the quality of the Baldwin is only second rate, and, 

 altogether it does not seem wise to recommend it as highly as formerly. 



The Greening is one of our standard winter export apples, and is hard to dis- 

 place by any of the newer varieties for planting in southern Ontario. As generally 

 grown it is not beautiful in appearance, being entirely green, and not very even in 

 form. But in the rich sandy loam of the Kiagara district it grows perfectly even in 

 form, and takes on a beautiful red blush, so that it is number one in beauty as well 

 as quality. It is yearly becoming more and more appreciated in foreign markets, 

 and since it is one of the most productive of all apples, it well deserves a place among 

 our best varieties. To show what the Greening will do under favoui'able conditions, 

 I may here make mention of an old Greening apple tree in my father's orchard 

 which, at Y5 years of age, covered a space of ground 40 feet in diameter, and 

 yielded twenty barrels of apples. It would be easy to calculate a fortune from an 

 orchai'd of such trees; thus, 40 trees per acre at 20 barrels per tree, at $1 net per 

 barrel, $800 per acre; 100 acres, 180,000 per annum! Many thus foolishly exagger- 

 ate the profits of fruit culture, and I must confess to having been myself somewhat 

 duped by reading glowing descriptions of the enormous profits of fruit-culture as 

 given in papers and journals which are now run in the interests of the nurserymen, 

 and not of the fruit-grower, when I sold out every head of cattle and converted a 

 grain farm into a fruit farm. 



On the whole, however, I am now, after sixteen years of patient waiting, quite 

 contented with the result. An apple orchard I am satisfied is in Southern Ontario, 

 the most valuable part of the farm, provided it is planted with a judicious selection 

 of varieties, such as are indicated above. According to my experience, a fair yield 

 per acre from such varieties as Spy, Greening and Eoxbury Eusset is an average 

 of about two barrels per tree, from trees in their prime, or over twenty-five years 

 planted. The price fluctuates considerably, according to the state of the foreign 

 markets. For instance, in 1880 the average price per barrel in Ontario, according 

 to the Dominion statistics, was $2.37; in 1881 it was only $1.50, in 1884 $3.23, 

 in 1887, $1.92, and in 1888 $2.06. Of course, this price includes the package! 

 Perhap:) it would be fair to average the net value of a barrel of good winter apples 

 at $1.00, and this would give, according to the above yield, an annual return from 



