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I intended to make apple-growing a prominent feature in my experiment, and I reasoned that if these trees did fairly well without cultivation or care, others would do excellently well with both. As we approached the second section line and climbed a rather steep hill, we got the first glimpse of our possession.

The wood for these beneficent noon-house fires was given by the farmers of the congregation, a load by each well-to-do land-owner, if it were a "society-house," and occasionally an apple-growing farmer gave a barrel of "cyder" to supply internal instead of external warmth.

One of the gravest dangers of wine-drinking is the power which the alcohol in it has to create a thirst which demands more alcohol. The spread of alcoholism in wine-making countries is an illustration of this fact. Another alcoholic beverage, common in apple-growing districts, is cider.

An average English labourer, I fear, if put in possession of half a dozen acres of land, would fare as badly as the poor Chartists who, some twenty years ago, joined in Feargus O'Connor's land scheme, unless he knew half a dozen ways of eking out a livelihood which even our squatters around Windsor and the New Forest are, alas! forgetting, under the money-making and man- unmaking influences of the 'division of labour. He is vanishing fast, the old bee-keeping, apple-growing, basket-making, copse- cutting, many-counselled Ulysses of our youth, as handy as a sailor: and we know too well what he leaves behind him; grandchildren better fed, better clothed, better taught than he, but his inferiors in intellect and in manhood, because whatever they may be taught they cannot be taught by schooling to use their fingers and their wits.

The commercial apple regions of North America are in Canada and the northern United States, comprising about two or three tiers of States, with important extensions southward into the mountains and in special parts. The Southern States are not known as apple-growing country, except in special restricted elevated areas, although there are considerable plantations near the Gulf of Mexico.

While we talked with much enjoyment of the lore of apples and apple-growing, I finished the Bellflower to the very core, and said to Horace as I reluctantly tossed aside the stem and three seeds: "Surely this has been one of the rare moments of life."

In certain regions in the southern hemisphere the temperature and humidity are right for the good growing of apples, mostly in elevated areas. In New Zealand and parts of Australia, apple-growing is assuming large proportions. Their export trade to Europe and parts of South America has come to be important and undoubtedly is destined greatly to increase.

The apple-tree thrives on many kinds of land, but light sand, hard clay, and muck are equally to be avoided. "Good corn land" is commonly considered to be good apple land. Certain soils and regions are particularly adaptable to commercial apple-growing, but the amateur may plant quite independently of this fact.

The great commercial apple-growing has been carried to high perfection of organization and care. More perfect apples are put on the market, in proportion to numbers, than ever before, carefully grown and graded and handled. I have watched this American development with growing pride.