1852. 
THE CULTIVATOR 
87 
List of Varieties of Apples. 
Information is asked by a correspondent relative to 
the best varieties of the apple for an orchard. Those 
most highly esteemed throughout the country, so far as 
tried, are the following :—For summer fruit —Early 
Harvest, Red Astrakhan, Sine Qua Non, Sops of Wine, 
Benoni, Summer Sweet Paradise, American Summer 
Pearmain, Sweet Bough, and, when highly or richly cul¬ 
tivated, Williams’ Favorite. Autumn fruit —Autumn 
Strawberry, Gravenstein, Porter, Lowell, Dyer,Fameuse, 
Hubbardston Nonesuch, Rambo, Belmont, and Pall 
Pippin, the four last keeping at the north through a large 
part of winter. Winter varieties —Rhode Island Green¬ 
ing and Baldwin, for profuse bearing; Swaar andEsopus 
Spitzenburgh, for rich or high flavor; Red Canada and 
Northern Spy, for agreeable pleasant quality late in 
spring; English and Roxbury Russets for even surface 
and long keeping; Newtown Pippin, for high quality and 
high price, when subjected to very rich culture; and 
Ladies Sweet, Tallman Sweet, Broadwell, Danvers, and 
Sweet Baldwin, for winter Sweet apples. Peck’s Plea¬ 
sant, a fine early winter variety, exceeds nearly every 
other in the uniform fairness of the fruit through all sea¬ 
sons. The Yellow Bellflower and Jonathan, the Vande- 
vere and Westfield Seeknofurther, should not be omitted 
in a complete collection of good winter apples; and 
Rawle’s Janet and Pryor’s Red will be regarded as in¬ 
dispensable at the Southwest. 
Education Necessary for the Parmer. 
The opinion is very general that farmers need no more 
than a common school education—that a college or aca¬ 
demical education, to them would be useless—nay some 
even aver that a college education, instead of being ad¬ 
vantageous to a young farmer, would be highly detri¬ 
mental, by engendering habits of laziness, and unfitting 
him for the laborious occupations of the farm. True, 
if the boy has not been taught to work, he will dread 
work when a man-—hence work should also form an im¬ 
portant part of his education, nor is there any necessity 
of the entire period of youth being spent in fitting for, 
and going through college, or that a degree should be 
obtained so soon. There is, in this country, too great 
haste to usher young men upon the stage of action, there 
being a striking difference in that respect between us and 
Europe. No matter if the young man is even thirty, 
before leaving college. If industrious and. prudent, he 
will be better fitted to enjoy happiness and act his part 
on the farm, than a farmer of the same age brought up 
without any taste for reading. We assert that if any 
many needs a college education, it is the farmer. He 
needs it, not to make money and acquire what is termed 
a good living—that is enough to satisfy the physical wants 
of his nature, but he needs it to gratify the wants of his 
mind. There is no class whose physical wants are bet¬ 
ter supplied than the farmer: but the mind, that which 
alone renders our enjoyments superior to the brute crea¬ 
tion—how little food, how little enjoyment is provided 
for it? Acre after acre is bought, and dollar upon dollar 
is put out at interest, but few or no books are bought or 
newspapers taken. 
There are few farmers Avho would not consider it the 
height of extravagance and folly to buy a library of five 
hundred volumes—a telescope costing one hundred dol¬ 
lars, and a barometer or microscope. They would much 
prefer to have the cost of the above in money at interest 
—and why? Simply because their education unfits them 
to enjoy books or scientific instruments. There are few 
who will deny that the farmer with the library, telescope, 
barometer and miscroscope, and the knowledge necessary 
to appreciate and use them, has more of the elements 
of happiness at command, than an unlettered agricul¬ 
turist who has thousands of dollars at interest. The 
former has materials for enjoyment at home—the latter 
has money at interest. I once knew a childless old farm¬ 
er, with a large farm, and many thousand dollars at in¬ 
terest. He was fond of reading. He only took a county 
newspaper costing one dollar a year, and borrowed other 
newspapers. I once asked him to subscribe for a city 
paper at one dollar a year. He said he was much pleased 
with the paper, and he intended to take it, but he would 
Avait another year, and perhaps congress Avould reduce 
the postage, and then he Avould subscribe for it. Poor 
man! (mentally) to save eight cents, the difference in 
postage, he deprived himself of the Evening Post one 
year, nor did he ever take it. 
If we travel among farmers, Ave meet w r ith feAV libra¬ 
ries, and little literary or scientific taste. Nothing has 
tended more to bring about this state of things than the 
impression that a college education is useless to the farm¬ 
er—the man who above all others is best calculated to 
enjoy such an education—because he has most leisure 
Avhich could be devoted to literature or science Avithout 
the least detriment to his farming business—nay that 
would be benefitted with such an intelligent guide at the 
helm. 
Thanks to our agricultural papers, the prejudice against 
a liberal education is rapidly wearing away, and men are 
becoming more and more convinced that a good classical 
and scientific education is highly ad\ T antageous to the 
farmer. S. B. Buckley. West Dresden, Yates county , 
N. Y. } Dec. 1. 1851. 
Wheat and Chess. 
Eds. Cultia t ator—W ithout either the ability or in¬ 
clination to discuss the chess question, permit me to state 
a couple of facts Avhich took place under my observa¬ 
tion. Some eight or ten years since, my father pur¬ 
chased one of Gilbert’s fanning mills, Avhich Avere then 
considered the best in this section. Previous to that 
time, Ave Avere much troubled with chess; but after using 
the new mill two or three years, the chess had pretty 
much disappeared. Alittle previous to the last harvest, 
as I Avas walking near one of our Avheat fields, my at¬ 
tention Avas attracted by a very large stool of chess, 
growing in the edge of the margin of the field. After 
pulling it up, and satisfying myself that it formed a 
single stool, I counted the stalks, and found it contained 
one hundred and five. AlloAving tAventy grains to the 
stalk—and I think this a moderate calculation—and Ave 
have more than two thousand fold. From these two 
facts, I drew as many conclusions. The first is, that a 
good fanning-mill is a capital anti-transmutation machine; 
and second, that chess, from its immense poAver of re¬ 
production, requires pretty close Avatching. J. M. 
Throopsville , 1851. 
