428 
DECIDUOUS TREES. 
more. But where full grown trees are already on the ground they 
should be treated like “ company,” whether they stand in the front, 
flank, or rear, of the house, or the house-site. 
Most of the apples noted for their excellence are borne on trees 
that are handsome to the eye, so that in naming a small list for 
places where there is room for them, the character of the fruit, and 
its successive maturity, is alone considered. The following is a list 
of twelve summer and autumn sorts. Yellow Harvest, Sweet Bough, 
Early Joe, Red Astrachan (for its beauty and for cooking), Graven- 
stein, American Summer Pearmain, Summer Queen, Autumn 
Bough, Porter, Jersey Sweeting, Maiden’s Blush, Fall Pippin. 
Those who have space to plant orchards for winter apples, will 
find works on orchard fruits, adapted to their wants. 
The Crab-apple. Pyrus inalus acerba .—All the crab-apples 
are noted for the beauty and the exquisite fragrance of their blos¬ 
soms. which exceed in size those of the 
common apple tree. Their forms are 
similar, but smaller and lower, being 
from twelve to sixteen feet in height, 
and somewhat greater breadth at ma¬ 
turity. The young wood of the wild 
European and American varieties is 
thorny, crooked, and hard, so that the 
tree can be used for hedges. Growing 
in a rich soil, and preserved from the attacks of the borer, the crab- 
apple tree becomes a massy-foliaged low tree, whose lower boughs 
nearly rest on the ground at their extremities. 
The American or Sweet-scented Crab, P. m. coronaria , is a 
finer variety than the wildings of Europe, having more fragrant 
blossoms, which cover the tree in May. The foliage is said also to 
remain on the tree longer. The fruit is round, about an inch in 
diameter, a pure green color, and of a pungent acidity that has 
made the phrase “ as sour as a crab ” a by-word in the language. 
The leaves when touched by the frost have an odor of violets. Its 
bark is rough and scaly. 
Fig. 140. 
