I will detain the Society no longer than to make a few observations.
I advert to this subject for the purpose of suggesting the utility of propagating Sweet Apples.
After providing a due proportion of apples for the table, and the ordinary purposes of cookery, I do not hesitate to express my opinion, that for all other uses, sweet apples are entitled to the preference. The best cider I ever tasted in this country, was made wholly of sweet apples. They afford also a nourishing food to man and all domestic animals. What furnishes a more delicate repast than a rich sweet apple baked and eaten with milk? I recollect the observation made to me by an observing farmer, before the American revolution, that nothing would fatten cattle faster than sweet apples. Mentioning this, a few years since, to a gentleman of my acquaintance in an adjoining state, he informed me, that he was once advised to give sweet apples to a sick horse. Happening then to have them in plenty, the horse was served with them, and he soon got well: and continuing to be fed with them, he fattened faster than any other horse he had ever owned (and he had owned many) that was fed with any other food.
Mentioning to the same gentleman, what I had long before heard, that a good molasses might be made of sweet apples, he confirmed the fact by an instance within his own knowledge: and further expressed his opinion (and I have not known a man whose practical judgment was entitled to more respect) that it would not be difficult, by forming orchards of sweet apples, to supply molasses for the general consumption of the United States. I have never tasted any sweet apple molasses; but I suppose it has not (nor has honey) the rich sweet of molasses from the sugar-cane; yet, for family uses in general, it would be a useful substitute for the latter. The process in making it I suppose to be very simple.--The apples being ground, and the juice (or cider) expressed, at the cider-mill, it is immediately boiled, (that is, before any fermentation takes place) and the scum being taken off as it rises, the boiling is continued until the liquor acquires the consistence of molasses.
Sweet apples are of different degrees of sweetness. Those of the richest kinds should be chosen for the purpose of making molasses. But in grafting, the cions should be taken (as they ought to be for all kinds of fruit) not from old, worn out trees, but from those whose originals are in full health and vigour.--For it has been satisfactorily ascertained in England, (and proofs of it are not wanting in our own country) that fruit trees have their infancy, (springing from seeds) youth, maturity, and old age; and that when they have reached this last stage, it is in vain that attempts are made to continue them. Or if the cions take, and grow for a few years, they are unproductive, and soon decay. The reason is plain: every cion is a part of the tree from which it is taken; and if this be in a state of decrepitude, so will be the cion; and although grafted on a youthful, thrifty stock, it will be of no avail.