CROPPING. 
61 
season, soil, local climate, modes of culture, temperature of fruit store, 
and other influences. It is, therefore, important to have an eye on the 
fruit store, and to occasionally test the varieties so as to catch them 
at the right time for table or kitchen use. Used too soon, apples are 
too acid; kept too long, they degenerate into sleepy mealiness, and have 
lost all their sparkling briskness and delicious aroma and freshness for 
which they are mostly valued. Apples should neither be handled nor 
rubbed in store. These but tend to hasten decay and mar their beauty. 
In a regular temperature the fruit will seldom sweat, and if it should, 
from extreme atmospheric changes, it should be left to dry again of its 
own accord. 
VL—Serving, 
The last point to be noted now is the serving or use of apples. In 
regard to kitchen apples, it is practically too often forgotten that each 
variety has its proper season for use, as well as dessert sorts have 
their appointed time for table. By paying attention to use each cooking 
apple in proper season, not only will all its best qualities be developed in 
tart, pie, fritter, sauce, or what not, but an immense saving of sugar will 
be effected. The majority of kitchen apples have almost sugar enough 
in them to eat pleasantly without any addition if only kept till their 
proper season. But cooked, as they often are, in a hard, green condition, 
they are sour as crabs, and have no particular flavour but intense acidity. 
Many apples are also utterly spoilt by an excess of sugar. The way 
to thoroughly enjoy good cooked apples is to use no sugar until they come 
to table, when each person may sweeten to his taste. The question has 
lately been mooted whether it is worth while to grow many kitchen 
apples at all; a few of them may be almost indispensable for sauce. 
But as they take up the same room and can hardly be said upon the 
whole to be more productive than dessert varieties, and as the latter, 
moreover, are far superior cooked to the sub-acid sorts, it may be 
wise to use chiefly dessert varieties for kitchen purposes, and thus, 
at least, save or reduce our sugar bills. 
Dessert apples, unless served at the proper time, are nothing. They 
should be carried from the fruit room to the dessert table in flat baskets 
only one apple thick. Should the distance be great and the weather 
frosty, the fruit should be covered over with a layer of cotton wool 
in transit. A mere sting of the frost in passing injures the flavour 
of apples. The best way of serving up apples for table would be in 
single file. But custom builds them up in the form of a pyramid of 
three or four layers, tapering to a single fruit in the centre. They are 
