THE TERM HORTICULTURE means garden culture, or the art of cultivating
gardens, and I notice that English books and Philadelphia magazines seem
to confine it to gardens in which flowers and vegetables, or perhaps
small fruits are grown. But here, and in Western New York, the word is
used in a wider sense, to embrace the culture of fruit in general, as
well as of flowers and vegetables; and it seems to me justly, for the
successful growth of apples, pears, and peaches implies that careful and
rich cultivation, as well as that beauty which belongs to the idea of a
garden.
THE NORTHERN SPY APPLE.—In the month of March of the current year I
opened a barrel of this fruit. It was a perfect luxury. So crisp and
juicy, so beautiful for dessert, so delicious for cooking, so attractive
for market; surely it is destined to hold the first place among our
Winter apples. True, the Roxbury Russet keeps longer, but I had rather
for a longer interval preserve the remembrance of the superb Spy, than
spin out the season a little longer with the dry tough-skinned Roxbury
Russet.
Most growers are too eager for the fruit to wait from twelve to fourteen
years for the Spy, but I agree with J. J. Thomas, who says “it is worth
waiting for;” and when once it begins bearing, it yearly rewards the
patient husbandman with loads of beautiful fruit.
There is one class of orchardists, however, whom we would advise not to
plant Northern Spy, and that is those who expect abundance of fine fruit
with little outlay of cultivation, and still less application of manure.
Such persons had better grow some other kind of apple, for the Spy
requires the best of cultivation, and abundance of manure, or it will
prove a source of vexation and disappointment.
The _American Agriculturist_ for 1862, page 367, has an encomium on the
Spy. It is there spoken of as the best and most profitable apple for
table and market, as commanding a high price even when other varieties
are abundant, and as being hardy because it blossoms late.
I am inclined to think the habit it has of developing its leaves and
blossoms late, is useful in more ways than one. The eggs of the Canker
worm and of the Tent Caterpillar hatch out almost simultaneously with
the leaves and blossoms of other apple trees, but the little worms
nearly starve on the Northern Spy, before the leaves are developed.
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