The reward of such care may not be reaped the first year or the second, but in time a reputation may be gained that will command a corresponding price for all fruit shipped.
The King of Tompkins Apple.—This apple is proving itself very desirable for cultivation in Ontario, at least on the Niagara peninsula; this season particularly, it has yielded an abundant crop of beautiful fruit. It is supposed to have originated in Wayne County, New Jersey, and has borne in different places the names, King Apple, Tom’s Red, and Tommy Red. We have seen it growing in Chenango Co., N. Y., where it is accounted a very sparse bearer, but with us it has yielded for more than one season an abundance only surpassed by such heavy bearers as the Baldwin and Roxbury Russet. It has fewer culls than the Northern Spy, which is the only large apple we would rank superior to it in quality; the latter producing a great many small uncoloured specimens on the under branches, while if the King hangs until about the first week in October, every specimen will become deeply shaded and splashed with crimson, and be uniformly large and showy. So fine a size does it attain that we find it not uncommon to fill a barrel with one hundred and eighty specimens of average size. The flavor is exceedingly agreeable, being rich and vinous, making it the best for cooking purposes; its large size alone debarring it from being also classed as best for dessert. It keeps nicely until February or even March, so that in this respect it has the advantage over the highly esteemed Esopus Spitzenburg.
As a market apple it is rising rapidly in favor. In Glasgow, where red apples are very popular, the King commands the highest price, and only this season has been quoted at from $5.00 to $7.00 per barrel, which however it may be wise to look upon “cum grano salis.”
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THE OLD KENTISH CHERRY.
BY A FELLOW WORKER.
When now I look back to when I was a boy,
And muse on those objects that then gave me joy;
Though few things of childhood in manhood will please,
There’s sometimes a life-long attachment to trees.