196 



APPLE ORCHARDS OF MY YOUTH. 



spects it is the best sweet apple ttiat I know. But 

 now I am in a quandary. Oar local grafters have 

 disseminated it all about, and now we fiud there are 

 two varieties among us, varying little except in the 

 period of ripening, one maturing in October, and 

 the other a 

 good winter 

 keeper. Both 

 varieties are 

 called Burn- 

 ham Sweet, 

 but the far- 

 mer who has 

 one tree is 

 satisfied, and 

 does not 

 trouble him- 

 self about the 

 other kind. 

 So that I am 

 led to doubt 

 whether the 

 old Burnham 

 tree was a 

 seedling, and 

 also to doubt 

 the opinion of 

 some that soil 

 and stock 

 make all the 

 difference we 

 note. At pres- 

 ent we believe 

 that the late 

 keeper is the 

 true kind, like 

 the old tree. 



Our rural 

 districts in 

 those times 

 had no mar- 

 ket for their 

 apples ; a few 

 bushels of na- 

 tive fruit sha- 

 ken from the 

 trees, the pur- 

 chaser helping to pick them up and paying in work 

 a York or Yankee shilling per bushel, or if grafted a 

 quarter, was all the chance for sale. Apples were 

 picked up all the fall and made into cider, both to 

 secure that necessity and to keep them away from 

 the cows. The winter apples had small attention. 

 A half day in October, with men and boys, filled 



I'he Trunk of a Gi/ 



the carts from which they were delivered to the bins 

 in the cellars as roughly as potatoes. They were 

 never picked from the trees, but always shaken or 

 poled off. Indeed, this practice still prevails to a 

 considerable extent. Last fall I hired a lad of 



eighteen 

 years to pick 

 apples. H e 

 was brought 

 up on a farm, 

 but it was not 

 easy to teach 

 him. He said 

 that he never 

 knew any- 

 body to pick 

 apples before, 

 they " always 

 s h o ok 'em 

 off." This 

 same lad was 

 set to pick ap- 

 ples from a 

 tree grafted, 

 with several 

 kinds, and 

 was directed 

 to keep them 

 separate, 

 which he said 

 he could eas- 

 ily do. But he 

 took his own 

 way to deter- 

 mine the dif. 

 f erence — he 

 tasted them ! 

 Of course in 

 the vicinity of 

 large towns 

 and cities 

 more atten- 

 tion was paid 

 to the culture 

 o f improved 

 varieties, but 

 they got n o- 



more pleasure from their orchards than did the far- 

 mer and the farmer's boys, and the village boys too, 

 for that matter ! Apples were as free to every one 

 as were the wild fruits of the field and wood. 



Contrast with this our modern facilities for mar- 

 ket ! We not only meet in competition in our local 

 markets apples grown a thousand miles away, but 



