APPLES, 139 
A northern aspect is the most suitable; and it is also 
desirable that there should be a dry, cool cellar under it, 
to be employed in retarding the maturation and decay of 
some of the more fugitive varieties, All the fruit intended 
for keeping should be plucked with the hand, or with such 
an implement as the fruit-gatherer invented by Mr. Saul, 
of Lancaster. For the finer dessert fruits the shelves 
should be made of hard wood, not of fir, and the fruit 
should be laid upon cartridge or writing paper, to prevent 
its imbibing any taint from the wood. The kitchen fruit 
may be kept in layers two or three deep, but not in heaps, 
and should be occasionally examined, when decaying fruit 
is to be removed. The sweating of apples and pears, for- 
merly much practiced, is now abandoned, as being attended 
with no useful effects. 
In the United States, this most valuable of all fruits is 
of universal culture, although it attains to highest perfec- 
tion in the Middle and some of the Northern States. The 
catalogue of the apple of the London Horticultural Soci- 
ety, including no less than 1,400 varieties, shows an im- 
mense increase since the days of Pliny, when only twenty- 
two were named. Of the kinds which have been intro- 
duced into the United States from abroad, many of: great 
’ value are found in various parts of the country: the fol- 
lowing have been pronounced of the highest merit by the 
National Congress of Fruit-growers held up to 1854: 
Early Harvest, Vandervere, 
Large Yellow Bough, White Seek-no-further, 
American Summer Pearmain, William’s Favorite (except for 
Summer Rose, light soils), 
Early Strawberry, Wine Apples or Hays, 
Gravenstein, Ladies’ Sweet, 
Fall Pippin, Lady Apple, 
Rhode Island Greening, Fameuse Danvers Winter Sweet, 
