SECRETARY'S REPORT. 157 



tall stems, is, to allow cattle to graze ia the orchard. The excuse 

 has no validity Avhatever. The place for cattle is in the pasture, 

 and the orchard should be as much devoted to fruit as the wheat 

 field to bread. If the grower insist upon tall stems, so that graz- 

 ing or plowing be practicable, let them be formed by degrees and 

 very gradually. 



A principal reason for the recommendation that the orchardist 

 should have a nursery of his own, is the difficulty of procuring 

 good and reliable trees in any other way. If brought from other 

 States they must necessarily be more or less unacclimated, besides 

 which there is the delay, expense, and damage from exposure to 

 various injuries attending transportation. Nurseries are neither 

 numerous nor extensive within the State, and scarcely any apple 

 nurseries are known to have been profitable enough to their owners 

 to secure their long continuance, unless by the sale of trees grown 

 elsewhere. Purchasers have been unwilling, generally, to pay a 

 price at all corresponding to the greater cost of growing them 

 hero ; including in the cost of growing, of course, the unavoidable 

 losses I'roin the severity of some winters, the breaking down by 

 heavy snows, and various other contingencies; and, consequently, 

 nearly all attempts to establish nurseries have proved failures. 

 But to an extent sufficient to furnish one's own orchard and make 

 gradual additions to it, the labor and expense are inconsiderable 

 compared with the superiority of the trees thus grown, and well 

 worth being incurred. As an acre, in rows four feet apart with half 

 the trees at eighteen inches iti the row, and the rest at three feet 

 apart, will contain between four and five thousand trees, probably 

 not more than an eighth to a quarter of an acre would be needed 

 to supply any ordinary plantation ; and the time req.uired need not 

 inteifi're seriously with other firm labors. 



Although the matter has been already incidentally alluded to, I 

 feel that I should be blameworthy should nothing more be said to 

 warn the orcharLlists of Maine from planting Western-grown rool- 

 grafled Irce.-i ; such as are so assiduously hawked about the State by 

 ignorant and irresponsible tree venders. These trees are grown in 

 the nei>;h!iorhood of Rochester, N. Y., and in other places, by mil- 

 lions. I h;ivc niyseli' seen hundreds and perluips thousands of 

 acres thickly covertMl with them, and they arc; so che;iply grown 

 as to be sold at fi-om four to seven dollars per liundi-ed. Having 

 little root, they are easily tiaiisported, and can be retailed hero at 



