Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1879 — value of Sweet Apples. [ARTICLE]

value of Sweet Apples.

Comparatively few sweet apples are raised in the West. The owners of commercial orchards state that they are not salable. Dealers affirm that the further West a city is located the smaller is the proportion of sweet to .sour apples required to supply the market. There is always wisdom in raising those crops for salefor which there is a market. It is expensive to educate the taste of people. It is better to give them what they want than to attempt to teach them that something else is preferable. . Observation shows that color, ahape\aod size have more to do in selling apples than quality and flavor. In this market smoooth, bright, red apples will find a ready sale, however tough, dry and tasteless theflbah may be. Highly-oolored peaches of inferior. quality will always sell at better prices than light-colored ones of the richest flavor. Color and si zb also determine the market value of strawberries. Whether any are produced for sale or not, farmers, would do well •to raise a

liberal supply of sweet applet for their own use. Baked sweet apples are among the cheapest klhds of food that can be placed on the table. They re* ijUlrb no preparation aside from cooking, and are sweet enough without the addition of sugar. They may be baked when there is no use for theetove-oven, and are none the worse for having been cooked several days. As a substitute for sauce, preserved or canned fruit, they arc excellent Eateir with rich oream they are hardly inferior to ripe peaches. Baked sweet apples and milk form a dish that is the delight of epicure. An excellent sauce may be made of sweet apples and boiled cider, that can be kept the entire year. In New England it is customary to freeze this sauce, and to thaw out portions of it as it is wanted for use. Sliced sweet apples are no); inferior to imported dried fruit in making puddings. As stock food sweet apples are greatly superior to sour ones. They are excellent food for dairy cows and young stock of all kinds. When stock nave the run of an orchard after the choice fruit is gathered the animals will run to the trees that produce sweet apples with as much certainty as boys will. Sweet apples contain so much sugar that they are very valuable as food for animals that are intended to be fattened. Hogs that are so dainty as to refuse to eat sour apples will eagerly devour sweet ones, even when they are uncooked. All kinds of poultry are fond of boiled sweet apples. The value of sweet apples as food for stock has not been properly appreciated. An acre of land in well-beariDg sweet apple trees will furnish more stock food than an acre in any crop that requires constant cultivation during the entire summer. With a little attention to pruning and manuring they will produce a crop during an averago lifetime. —Chicago Times.