AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
67 
crop of more than 'a thousand bushels of 
choice apples, requiring only to be gathered 
and taken to market, and yielding a clear 
profit of more than fifty dollars per acre. In 
this orchard we cultivated but six varieties— 
the Harvest apple, August sweet, Fall pippin, 
Spitzenburg, Greening and Seek-no-further. 
Each, in its season, found a ready market, at 
remunerating prices. The produce of that 
orchard of six acres, now eighteen years old, 
is to-day worth more than eighty dollars an 
acre, annually, for feeding purposes only. 
The soil was not unusually favorable ; in¬ 
deed, it was so rocky that it could with diffi¬ 
culty be tilled except with the hand hoe. 
The process pursued was very simple. 
The natural trees raised from seeds by our¬ 
selves, were planted out and allowed to grow 
a year or two, and then grafted upon the 
stock or larger limbs ; many of them w'ere 
grafted by inoculation, and a few days spent 
each year in pruning, has been the chief care 
required by the trees. Each spring they 
were formerly well whitewashed and the 
leaning trees tied up to a stake. To guard 
them from being barked by the traces, four 
white oak stakes, split out like rails, were 
driven around the trees. When first set out 
all the trees were leaned a little to the south¬ 
west, so as to brace them against the winds 
prevailing from that direction. There are 
few or no soils that will not produce apple 
trees with a little care in manuring. A cart 
load of stable manure applied once in ten 
years, to a plot of ground ten feet square—no 
matter how poor—will fit it to support a 
good tree. 
An apple tree that costs less than two dol¬ 
lars to plant and rear it, will for many years 
yield, without after expense, an average pro¬ 
duce of ten bushels a year, worth for feeding 
alone, two dollars a year ; and fifty to eighty 
such trees may stand upon a single acre. 
While on this subject, we will mention a 
young orchard that we visited last spring. 
Several hundred trees planted upon a soil so 
barren that it would barely yield grass, but 
the trees were quite as large and thrifty as 
any we have seen of the same age. We 
learned that the only manure used was about 
a quart of urine each, annually, though when 
first planted, a large deep hole was dug for 
each tree, and filled up with surface soil, 
mingled with a small quantity of chip ma¬ 
nure. 
Gathering Apples and Pears. —It is wrong 
to take the whole crop off the trees at once, 
as the fruit will vary in forwardness ; the 
choicest kinds should therefore be looked 
over two or three times, taking each time 
those best ripened. Again, many kinds of 
apples and pears (early ones especially), 
should be taken in a few days before they 
appear ripe, or they lose their briskness, 
and eat mealy and insipid. Let all the fruit 
intended for keeping be hand-picked, and 
laid carefully on the shelves of the fruit room; 
they may be placed three or four thick if 
room is scarce, but will be better laid singly. 
As the fruit is deposited in the room, leave 
open the door and windows, day and night, 
to allow the moisture which newly-gathered 
fruit will give off, to escape. Late plums— 
as the Golden drop, Imperatrice, and the 
Quetch—may be preserved for a long time, 
if gathered before they are fully ripe and 
suspended in a dry, airy room ; or they may 
after drying them for a day or two, be wrap¬ 
ped in tissue paper, and placed on the shelf 
of the fruit-room. The old bearing wood of 
the raspberry should now be cut away, to 
admit light and air to the canes for next 
year, which should at the same time be thin¬ 
ned out. Where new borders are about 
being made, now will be the time for com¬ 
mencing them, and preparing the materials 
for the purpose—dry, sound, healthy loam 
and rubble stone, and finer waste to cover 
over with, should be in readiness.—Florist. 
We have just (Oct. 19,) taken a trip to the 
fruit stalls, stores and confectioners of Broad¬ 
way, to make note of their contents. There 
is abundannt evidence of a bountiful fruit 
harvest, and that the labors of our horticul¬ 
tural societies, of amateur fruit growers, and 
of the press, are having a very happy influ¬ 
ence upon our gardens and orchards. We 
have never seen so much fruit in the market 
or so great a variety. Grapes are very 
abundant, and Dr. Underhill is in the as¬ 
cendent from Chambers-st., to Astor-place. 
They are very fine, and retail for eighteen 
cents a pound. They have usually sold, we 
believe, in former years, for a shilling a 
pound. The demand for them doubtless in¬ 
creases as they become known in the mar¬ 
ket, and he finds no difficulty in marketing 
his whole crop at any reasonable price. Any 
one who knows good fruit, would prefer to 
send for Underhill’s grapes at eighteen cents, 
rather than a chance article at a shilling. 
This is a very encouraging feature in fruit 
growing. The more you enlarge the culti¬ 
vation of a first rate quality of fruit, the more 
remunerative does it become. 
Late varieties of plums are still in market 
and apples are very abundant and beautiful. 
We noticed with pleasure the interprise of 
the salesmen in putting up a variety of fruits 
in a small basket, just the thing for a pres¬ 
ent or for the dessert, at so much per basket. 
The peaches are nearly gone, but the few on 
sale are very fine. 
The most striking feature of the fruit 
stores, is the large increase in the varieties 
of pears offered for sale. Formerly the only 
varieties nolicable were the Virgalieu and 
Seckle, beside the common cooking pears 
which were nameless. For a few seasons 
back one could get, at Thompson’s and at 
Taylor’s, the Duchess d’ Angouleme, and 
the Beurre Diel, in their season, for a trifle 
less than their weight in silver. Boston 
was the only market where pears of the finer 
varieties could be purchased by their names. 
We noticed this morning at a number of 
places, besides the varieties mentioned, the 
Flemish Beauty, the Napoleon, the Louise 
Bonne d’ Jersey, the Onondaga, and other 
varieties, and at prices that did not taste of 
the silver. These are cheering indications 
that our labors and those of kindred journals 
are not without their influence upon the 
country. They are making fruit far more 
abundant and at prices within the reach of 
all. We hope to see their influence extend¬ 
ed until the luxury of good fruit is found upon 
every man’s table within our borders. 
KEEPING APPLES FROZEN. 
The injurious effect of frost upon fruits, 
roots, &c., results, we suppose, from the ex¬ 
pansion of the fluids contained in them, 
which tears and destroys the organic struc¬ 
ture. The different varieties of fruits and 
roots from peculiarities in their structure, 
and from the greater or less amount of flu¬ 
ids contained in them, may suffer unequally 
from freezing, but we have had little faith in 
the various statementslto the effect that 
potatoes, for example, left in the ground over 
winter have come out sound in the spring 
after having been frozen solid. We have 
never observed any direct evidence of this 
in our own experience, and have supposed 
that where potatoes have been dug up sound 
at the close of winter, it has been in some 
structure protected by a covering of snow or 
other means. We have seen apples of tough, 
dry varieties hanging upon the trees in Feb¬ 
ruary and March, which were apparently 
sound but, upon a closer examination showed 
their internal structure to be materially dis¬ 
organized, while their flavor—if they ever 
had any—was destroyed or essentially 
changed. With this experience and these 
views of the matter we are at a loss to ac¬ 
count for the statements of Dr. I. M. Gros- 
venor, in the Boston Cultivator, to the effect 
that several varieties of apples were not 
harmed at all by freezing and thawing, but 
even keep better for being frozen. We give 
Dr. G.’s. statements in full : 
When we commenced keeping house, it 
was in the Dr. Haseltine house, which was 
old and uncomfortable, and the cellar no bet¬ 
ter for keeping out cold than the house. In 
the fall, I laid in a supply of apples, con¬ 
sisting of Green Sweets, Greenings, and a 
red apple which has become extinct or near¬ 
ly so, although much better for the table 
than some new varieties. They were car¬ 
ried into the chamber, as it was supposed 
they would keep better there than any where 
else till cold weather. About the 10th of 
November, we were absent from home two 
or three days, when on our return, we found 
our apples all very badly frozen, the weath¬ 
er having become very cold while we were 
gone. We concluded our apples were all 
spoiled, till the weather became so warm 
that they were again thawed, when it was 
found that the Green Sweets were not harmed 
at all, but the red apples were soft and dis¬ 
colored—good for nothing—and the Green¬ 
ings nearly as bad. The Sweets were car¬ 
ried to the cellar, where it was supposed 
they would be safe, but soon the cold re¬ 
turned and our apples were again frozen as 
bad as ever, and we came to the conclusion 
that they might as well have remained in the 
garret. As they could not be used, they 
were left to see what effect warm weather 
would have upon them, and as the winter 
was long and severe, and the cellar better 
adapted to keeping out heat than cold, the 
a pples remained frozen till April, when they 
