FEUIT CULTURE. 



" Forward in the name of God, grafe, set, planie and nourish up 

 trees in every corner of your groundes ; the labor is small, the cost is 

 nothing, the commoditie is great; yourselves shall have pleyity, the 

 poore shall have somewhat in time of want, to relieve their necessitie, 

 and God shall reward your good mindes and dimgenc'e." 



Thus wrote honest old Gerarde, more than two hundred and fifty 

 years ago ; and no better advice can be given to the farmers of 

 Maine at the present time. There are few situations in the State, — 

 probably not a single farm, — where fruit enough to add a health- 

 ful luxury to the farmer's store may not be readily grown, with a 

 little painstaking ; and there are very considerable districts so ad- 

 mirably adapted by nature to its production, that no other crop so 

 well repays the labor and cost of culture. Apples, especially, may 

 be grown with profit, to supply more largely the home market (it 

 has never yet been properly supplied), and for exportation also, for 

 our Northern grown fruits are among the best keeping and finest 

 flavored in the world, and will command the highest price where- 

 ever apples can be carried ; and with cargoes of ice they have been 

 safely- carried to the farthest points of the globe. The greater 

 firmness of flesh which Maine grown apples possess, gives them a 

 great superiority for shipment, over those grown in the Middle 

 States. Apples sent from Portland to Cuba in slow sailing vessels, 

 have arrived in much better condition than those sent from New 

 York by steamers ; and they can be sent after more southern growa 

 fruit has gone out of market. It is true that our orchards have 

 suffered serious injury within the past six or eight years, most 

 unusual damage, so that some of them, in fact many of the older 

 and more neglected ones, are unproductive and profitless ; still 

 facts abundantly sustain the assertion that, take twenty or forty 

 years together, in suitable locations in Maine, no other branch of 

 farm business has given, or promises to give in years to come, 



