October. 25. 
TIIE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
The apple-gathering Reason is arrived, and all the I 
collage gardeners will he busy whose trees are in j 
good hearing; hut this is not generally the case, at 
least in my neighbourhood, Yv'e have had a sad 
tailing off in this most valuable fruit for the last 
three seasons; in the first instance, trees that never 
failed to bear an ample store of fruit never put forth 
one blossom, and although there has since been 
abundance of beautiful bloom the fruit has been very 
scarce, and this year the trees I speak of do not bear 
one apple. Previously to the first failure the winter 
had been so extremely mild that it seemed to me, in 
my ignorance, as if the trees had not enjoyed suffi¬ 
cient rest to form and expand their beautiful blossoms 
when spring returned; however this may he, they 
have never done well since, and the loss of the fruit 
is really a serious one, and deprives both rich and 
poor of much enjoyment during the winter months. 
Apples, when put away for winter use, should never 
be wiped dry after they have sweated. This I learnt 
from a very intelligent man who had been for some 
years a fruiterer in London ; he said it was a great 
mistake to remove the coating of moisture, which, 
hy drying on the fruit, tended rather to its preserva¬ 
tion than decay. We have for many years followed 
his advice, and certainly our apples have kept quite 
as well, and we think even better, than when we care¬ 
fully wiped and dried them; the wiping process is 
such a labour where apples abound that it is a real 
benefit to escape it, even supposing apples only keep 
a.s well and not better than they did before, and this, 
1 can undertake from my own experience to say, they 
do. They are a truly valuable fruit in every way, 
and to the sick poor a few nicely baked are a real en¬ 
joyment; as they cool the parched lips and quench the 
burning thirst of many who have nothing beside 
their bed hut a cup of water, or what they call 
“bread-tea.” The rich are often little aware of the 
sufferings and privations of the poor, and how much 
relief they might afford by what in their abundance 
they think nothing of. A few baked apples, a jug of 
apple-water, or a pot of apple-jam, are useful and 
grateful to those who are sick and possess nothing. 
Apples likely to decay, or not in themselves good 
keepers, if pared and cored, and boiled down with 
rather less than their weight of brown sugar, make a 
pleasant jam for common use, and prevents the loss 
of so much fruit; apples sliced, without paring, into 
a large tea-pot, with a little sugar and lemon-peel, 
and then covered with boiling water, make a cooling 
and agreeable beverage for invalids; and these are 
all made with little expense and trouble. Those who 
possess that excellent apple the Nonpareil, may make, 
in the simplest way, a delicious preserve, quite fitted 
for deserts :—pick out all the smallest of the apples 
when they arc quite ripe; rub them clean, but neither 
peel them or remove tho stalks ; put a teacupful of 
water into a stone jar, and then a layer of fruit; be¬ 
tween every layer of fruit sprinkle good brown or 
white sugar rather thickly, and fill the jar in this 
way; a few strips of lemon-peel should be added, 
according to the quantity of fruit; tie the jar down 
closely, and bake it till the apples are soft. This is 
a delicate and excellent preserve, but it must be 
made with Nonpareils. To those who dare not ven¬ 
ture to eat uncooked apples T would recommend tho 
Eibstonc Pippin carefully halted; it is then harmless 
to the most delicate stomach, and excellent in itself; 
but to all hut invalids that queen of apples must be 
preferable in ils own rich ripeness. 
The apple-tree is a native of the east. It is spoken 
of in the first great history of man as among those 
53 
fruits that the Lord declared by the prophet -loci 
should he destroyed by drought ns a judgment upon 
the rebellious people. Apples were very highly es¬ 
teemed indeed among the Romans, and as many as 
21) kinds were cultivated in Italy about tho beginning 
of the Christian era. The profit arising from these 
highly valued trees was then so great that it gave 
rise to the invention of grafting, by which means 
many varieties were obtained, and some are spoken 
of hy the writers of that period as remarkable for 
their fine qualities. England can only boast of 
possessing the wild crab as a native fruit, but it is 
the stock upon which most of our finest apples have 
been, raised, and its blossoms add to the beauty of 
our wild and graceful edges in the early summer. 
Tire Romans are supposed to have introduced the 
apple into this country, but its present name is 
derived from the Saxon word “ aeppel.” The Pippin 
was not brought into England till the year lf>\?5, 
when it was first planted hy Leonard Marschal in 
the little village of Plum stead, in Sussex. The Pippin 
is so called from the small spots, or pips, which gene¬ 
rally mark it. The cottage gardener may increase 
his stock of apple-trees by following the fashion of 
our brethren in far distant China, and thereby obtain 
fruit safely and very quickly too, which is a great 
consideration. The Chinese strip a ring of bark from 
a bearing bough, about an inch wide, and then put 
a thick lump of very rich earth, mixed with cow-dung, 
round the wound, binding it fast to the branch wilh 
a piece of sacking; to keep it constantly moist they 
have an ingenious way of fixing a vessel of water 
above the ball of earth, with a small hole in it, so as 
to allow the water gently to drop constantly upon it; 
but if this cannot he contrived the ball may he fre¬ 
quently watered by the hand, that it may never 
become dry. The roots strike out into the soil just 
above where the bark was stripped off This opera¬ 
tion must be performed in the spring, the branch 
sawn off and planted when the leaves fall, and the 
following year it will bear fruit. This is worth 
trying hy those who may not have heard of this 
plan before; but I believe it has been practised of 
late with very good success. I am sure that if cot¬ 
tagers cultivated these useful trees more than they 
do, and with some care, they would find them a source 
of profit as well as a household good; and if they 
trained them as espaliers, they would beautify the 
little garden without injuring it by their shade. 
The apple-tree is peculiarly interesting to the 
Christian’s heart, as being employed by the church 
of the Old Testament in the figurative language of 
the cast, to describe the beauty and excellence of her 
Redeemer. A spreading apple-tree, loaded with its 
bright, delicious fruit, may bring strikingly before us 
that blessed “shadow” under which our soids may 
rest in peace and safety, and the sweetness and rich¬ 
ness of the Redeemer’s love to all who will “taste 
and see that the Lord is good.” The orchard and 
the garden, the field and the wood, bill and valley, 
unite in sounding in our ears great and precious 
truths. Let us learn their expressive language, that 
we may understand the wonderful things they say. 
COMPLEMENTARY COLOURS. 
Some of your readers may wish to discover tho 
opposite or complementary colours, without subject¬ 
ing their eyes to the trial suggested in one of your 
leading articles some weeks back, and such readers 
may find the following plan useful:—Mark three 
equidistant points on a circle, and mark them seve¬ 
rally with the names of tho three primary colours, i.c. 
