VAKIETIES. 
5 
Then in growing apples for profit, selection, not collection, should be 
kept strictly in view. Find out by observation or experience what sorts 
thrive best and sell for most money in any given locality, and grow 
chiefiy these. Those who grow apples chiefly for their own pleasure 
or amusement, or merely to supply their own tables with apples 
from the July of one year to the August, or later, of the next—thus 
making not only the new and the old crop meet, but overlap by several 
months—will, of course, grow a considerable collection, and choose 
seyeral of no great merit, beyond their being in season at some particular 
tinie. But the commercial grower finds it to his interest to confine 
himself to a comparatively few sorts, and to be specially chary of bad 
I _ 
keepers. Even in private establishments the fashion has set in strongly 
in favour of selecting the best only, and growing a half dozen or a 
dozen of trees of one sort, instead of as many different varieties. Where 
apples used to be grown by varieties in fifties and hundreds we often find 
them now by only dozens or scores. The reduction has been effected by 
a system of rigorous selection, which has left only the best for that 
locality or district. 
It, however, by no means follows that the best for Kent or Devonshire 
are also the best for Lancashire or Durham, and hence the importance 
of a large variety to choose from, and also of hybridisers and horticul¬ 
turists growing and raising new varieties specially suited for different 
localities. This, in fact, will be the next great advance in apple culture, 
and the probability is that, before many more years have elapsed, feach 
county or group of counties will have its apples classified and named, 
and as generally recognised as belonging to it or them as the native 
floras of different districts are known and correctly described now. 
Varieties. 
Having written so much about the importance of selection, we now 
proceed to give brief descriptive lists of some of the best and most 
generally serviceable varieties of dessert and kitchen apples that do 
well over the greater part of England. In regard to this division of 
apples into two classes, it must be admitted that it is somewhat arbi¬ 
trary, for the Orange, Eibston, and Golden among the Pippins, Eeinette 
du Canada, and others, are among the finest of all apples for cooking; 
