New and Valuable Apples.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43075, 30 March 1907, Page 2

New and Valuable Apples.

A dozen varieties of apples is mentioned in “ Garden ” as being particularly good, all of them having been honoured with either a first-class certificate or an award of merit by one of the most reliable juries in the world, viz., the fruit committee of the Royal Horticultural Society of Eng« land. It is pleasing to know that two or three of the kinds referred to are already in the colony, and probably some of the others will make their appearance in two or three months’ time when the new catalogues are issued.

Allington P-ppiu is not very new, but it has the reputation of being one of the most valuable apples known. It seldom or never fails to produce a crop, and no kind bears a heavier crop. Its .flavour is good but not quite up to the standard of the welhknown Cox’s Orange Pippin; an excellent market sort.

James Grieve is a notorious heavy cropper. Fruit of good size, golden cream colour; a dessert variety which should be in every garden. This also is not very new, hut every day _it is growing stronger in the estimation of the apple public. / Charles Ross is across between Cox’s Orange Pippin and Peasgood’s Nonesuch. It is of large size, and one of the handsomest of all British apples. It is classed as a dessert, and also as a culinary fruit. Paroquet is a very prolific and re markably high-coloured variety, ssid to have a great future before it as a market apple—culinary. Rival. —This is an attractive fruit, its colour being bright gold and scarlet, and the flavour rich and refreshing It is classed as dessert or cooking—a late variety. Christmas Pearmain will probably prove one of the best market apples of recent introduction. A true Pearmain in shape, of good size, very rich color iug, an excellent cropper, ond a most desirable variety. Dessert—a late kind. Bountiful is a Herefordshire cooking apple of great promise. It ■* i consistent and heavy bearer. Not a long keeper. Edward VII., a Worcestershire apple, of great size, remarkably free bearing, and undoubtedly a good late keeper. Gabalva —This is of a distinct spicy flavour ; either for dessert or cooking it may be recommended. A late ietyAn old experienced fruitgrower in Eugland, Mr G. Abbey, relates his experiences in the “Journal of Horti culture ” in reference to the damage done by birds to his fruit trees and bushes. The birds, he says, cannot be followed into their retreats on other people’s ground, and should be treated as trespassers, and those who foster the feathered thieves should be mulcted in fines for the damage done. The fruitgrower must protect his crops. The sentimentalist does not pay for his sentiments, the fruitgrower bears all the brunt of out of-pocket expenses. The grower must pretecs himself as best he can against the birds,- and this brings us to the question, how best to d. >it ? (1) There is the gun, it c >sts money and gives no return for the outlay in powder and shot and time ; (2) the spraying with caustic alkali washes, which must in time harden the cuticular tissues, and result in hide-bindmg and stuntedness ; and (3) the very old fashioned, and, to the writer’s view, the very best of all pre~ vontitives, with something of benefit to the trees or bushes, whitewash. This remedy or preventive applies chiefly to the protection of fruit buds and blossoms from the injury caused by birds. The lime-wash is easily made by procuring some freshlyburned lime, slacking it in water, forming into a wash, readily applied •by a syringe, straining through a sieve so as to prevent clogging the nozzle, and then applying without further delay, coating trees ar bushes all over with the limewash. This is hardly effective in the stems and large branches, therefore these should first

be gone over by means of a brush, reaching well into all the crocks, holes, auc 1 crevices of the bark, and afterwards syringe the heads with the wash The lime will prevent the birds from touching the buds, it will kill moths, moss, lichens, and any hibernating pests reached. In time, 'he lime will peel off and assist in b nefitting the soil, so that thr*e neoefits are accomplished at the same time.