134 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



more ample returns than the judicious and skillful culture of fruit. 

 If we may judge of the future by the past, there is little probability 

 of as serious harm occurring again for one generation at least, as 

 only one other instance of extensive damage is known to have 

 occurred since the settlement of the State. 



At the last session of the Board of Agriculture, I was instructed 

 to make this a leading topic of the present report. Perhaps it may 

 be thought by some that the publication of so many books on the 

 same subject as have been issued during the past fifteen years, and 

 which are accessible to such as seek information regarding it, 

 should- supersede the necessity of such a labor. If it were only 

 general information which is wanted, this might be so, but such is 

 not the case. We need the knowledge adapted to our own situa- 

 tion, and which they do not furnish. It is information regarding 

 the local character of any fruit, which the orchardist especially- re- 

 quires, before he can decide whether to enter upon its extensive 

 cultivation or not. By far the greater number of fruits are spec- 

 ially adapted to some locality, soil or climate, or to some combina- 

 tion of these. Nearly all develope their true worth only within a 

 limited area, and sometimes within narrow limits ; away from the 

 soil or climate or other conditions which meet the peculiar wants 

 of any one fruit, that fruit becomes inferior in quality, more or 

 less unproductive, or otherwise profitless. Gerarde sai'd truly in 

 1597 : "Every clymat hath his own fruite, far different from that 

 of other countries." Downing in 1845 wrote as follows : 



"Those fruits which succeed perfectly in one section of the 

 country, are sometimes ill adapted to another." 



Jaques, in Worcester county, Mass., a little later, puts it strong- 

 ly as follows : " If there are pears which ripen finely at Salem, but 

 will not succeed in Boston ; if the climates of Western New York 

 and the shores of the Hudson differ so widely as to affect the qual- 

 ity of several varieties of different species of fruits, one might easily 

 infer — what it has cost the writer something to learn — that who- 

 ever would succeed with fruit trees, in the hill country of the east- 

 ern States, may rely with tolerable safety upon the uncertain 

 testimony of his own neighborhood, while the profoundest wisdom 

 that has ever recorded the experience of other countries, would 

 only mislead and bewilder." 



Now it happens that the works on fruit culture by Downing, 

 Thomas, Barry, Elliot, Manning, Cole and others, were all written 



