| Show ANTIPODAL APPLES Londoners Eatinc Ii nit From the Orchards of Australia A few years ago had anyone predicted that the orchards of Australia would provide the fairest portion cf the dessert or the London dinner in the height of the season he would have been set down as a dreamer gone wild with the colonial idea Yet the mirado baa been accomplished Apples pears them elves tho offspring qf an English stock haTe come to replenish tho native supply sup-ply appearing in abundance precisely when most needed In Hay and early Juno housekeepers aro sorely tried to nrnlah the last course English apples ire few and shriveled Those of American Amer-ican growth are spent Pears are not on hire The time of strawberries has not come except for the swaggering classes Grapes aro in their worst season sea-son The nuts of auumn are dry and musty and oranges aro over It is at j this season that wo arc to be blessed with the noble and beautiful product Australia of which asyet only the timid irstlings appear in the frolt market of the colonial exhibition Considering that these apples and pears hare traveled a distance of 14000 miles and that tho arrangements for heir transport are yet imperfect Yo must pronounce the experiment a complete com-plete success In reaped to looks the fruit will compare favorably with the cry best either of native growth or of American importation No finer color or bloom has been seen in Covent Garden Gar-den market The apples might have been gathered in the garden of Hesper ides The pears shoW little signs of ravel If only from their appearance they are a splendid acquisition to our inner tables Some of the fruit indeed can hardly be recognized as belonging to the names by which they are labeled The scarlet nonpareils and the Sturmer pippins ere larger than their respective kind The redstreaks and russets I recall the warmer and brighter hues of ncir southern homes There arofewof the varieties but which show an improvement im-provement on the type in color shape and sire In fineness of skin and tex taro of flesh they are at least equal to their best grown English or foreign namesakes SUE VLAVOE XOT BO GOOD As to flavor it must be admitted that they are not equal to the promise of heir looks With tho exccp ion of one or two of the apples neither they nor the pears the pears more especially are good to the taste as the best of American Amer-ican or English fruit but that is a defect de-fect that will probably be amended in future importations The enterprise is n novel one and it has been carried out without experience and as yet with imp im-p rfect means The greater portion of the fruits hitherto exhibited in the colonial market hare come from South Australia and Victoria colonies in which the apple and pear can scarcely bt said to be quite at home This is the country rather of tee vine the peach and the orange the climate being hardly moist enough for the production or the purely English fruits at their beat beatTasmania Tasmania which is the apple and pear country par excellence li unfortunate unfor-tunate not represented in this exhibi ion In Tasmania English fruits attain tain to a degree of perfection such as would be scarcely credible to those who I cling to tbe superstition that the apples I is a distinctly English product In I Tasmania nil our wornout British stocks renew their youth and vigor hero the Kiostonu pippin is still to bo eaten in its more than original delectableness delecta-bleness There tbe poo berry acquires a positive grandeur ot character In hat Lotoiland of the south is tie future orchard of the empire St Fames l < > Jget |
