Apples are more valuable than potatoes for food. They
are equally valuable as food for fowls, swine, sheep, cattle, and
horses. Hogs have been well fattened on apples alone. Cooked with other
vegetables, and mixed with a little ground grain or bran, they are an
economical food for fattening pork or beef. Sweet or slightly-acid
apples, fed to neat stock or horses, will prevent disease, and keep the
animals in fine condition. For human food they may be cooked in a
greater variety of ways than almost any other article. Apple-cider is
valuable for some uses. It makes the best vinegar in general use, and,
when well made and bottled, is better than most of our wines for
invalids. Apple-molasses, or boiled cider, which is sweet-apple cider
boiled down until it will not ferment, is excellent in cookery.
Apple-butter is highly esteemed in many families. Dried apples are an
important article of commerce. Green apples are also exported to most
parts of the world. Notwithstanding the increased attention to their
cultivation during the last half-century, their market value is steadily
increasing, and doubtless will be, for the best varieties, for the next
five hundred years.

It does not cost more than five or six cents per bushel to raise apples;
hence they are one of the most profitable crops a farmer can raise. No
farm, therefore, is complete without a good orchard. The man who owns
but five acres of land should have at least two acres in fruit-trees.

_Soil._--Apples will succeed well on any soil that will produce good
cabbages, potatoes, or Indian corn. Land needs as much manure and care
for apple-trees as for potatoes. Rough hillsides and broken lands,
unsuitable for general cultivation, may be made very valuable in
orchards. It must be enriched, if not originally so, and kept clean
about the trees. On no crop does good culture pay better. Many suppose
that an apple-tree, being a great grower, will take care of itself after
having attained a moderate size. Whoever observes the great and rapid
growth of apple-trees must see, that, when the ground is nearly covered
with them, they must make a great draft on the soil. To secure health
and increased value, the deficiency must be supplied in manure and
cultivation. The quantity and quality of the fruit depend mainly on the
condition of the land. The kinds and proportions of manures best for an
apple-orchard are important practical questions. We give a chemical
analysis of the ashe