By M. Andre' Thouin. 



243 



raw, but if roasted it acquires a delicate and sweet flavour ; 

 it is also very agreeable when stewed. It will undoubtedly 

 be tried as a cider Apple, when the plants of it shall be more 

 generally diffused. But hitherto, although the tree bears 

 three thousand apples annually, the fruit has always been 

 consumed as food rather than applied to purposes of beverage. 



Not only will the general utility of the tree procure it a 

 place in our orchards, but its beauty must make it a desirable 

 object for our shrubberies. The original tree now forms a 

 nearly hemispherical head of considerable size. The dense 

 dark green shining foliage, gray beneath, is during three-fourths 

 of the year enamelled with numerous bunches of delicate 

 rose-coloured blossoms, and scattered over with fruits of 

 which the diversity of colour and size produces an effect not 

 less singular than agreeable. 



The abundant and especially the constant disposition of 

 this tree to produce fruit, must undoubtedly appear a pheno- 

 menon to cultivators, and particularly to those who are aware 

 that in our natural orchards those trees which are not pruned, 

 although producing their fruit but once a year, are usually 

 subject to a year of rest, after a year of bearing, while this 

 variety, on the contrary, always bears several crops yearly, 

 without exhibiting any symptoms of exhaustion. Nevertheless, 

 if we take into consideration the prodigious quantity of roots 

 and fibres with which the numerous and deep principal roots 

 are supplied, the myriads of leaves which cover the whole 

 tree, even upon branches five years old, and the power these 

 must have of imbibing from the atmosphere the aliment of 

 the decendingsap; if we observe the tendency of the tree to 

 change the buds of its branches after one or even three seasons 



