APPLES FOR, AROOSTOOK. 105 



APPLES FOR AROOSTOOK. 

 By Dr. T. II. Hoskins, of Newport, Vermont. 



[At tho request of Secretary Gilbert the following article is prepared for this Re- 

 port, as containing tho substance of my extemporaneous address upon Fruit Growing, 

 at Houlton and Presque Isle, October 24 and 26, 1880. T. II. H.] 



Fourteen j'ears ago, when I first settled ni_yself to farming upon 

 the shore of Lake Memphremagog, in Northeastern Vermont, it was 

 generally believed that apples, with the exception of Siberian crabs, 

 could not be successfuU}' grown in that elevated and bleak locality. 

 The range of mountains forming the water shed, summit, or "divide" 

 between the upper Connecticut and the vallc}* of the lower St. Law- 

 rence, is probably, in winter, the coldest locality on the Atlantic 

 slope south of the Lawrentian chain, whicli forms the northern 

 boundary of the St. Lawrence valley. Lake Memphremagog lies 

 among those mountains which stretch across the Connecticut valley 

 and connect the White Mountains of New Hampshire with the 

 Green Mountains of Vermont. The surface of the lake is 700 feet 

 above the sea, and the country around it, though fertile, and a fine 

 dairy region, rises to more than double that height, some of the best 

 dairy farms standing at least 1400 feet above the ocean level. 

 Above these the wooded summits of the hills rise as much higher. 

 Owl's Head and Bear Mountain, wdiich stand before my west win- 

 dows, six and ten miles away, being respectively 2,800 and 2,600 

 feet high, while Mt. Hor, Mt. Pisgah, Burke Mountain, and the 

 Sheffield and Sutton Hills rise in the south and southeast to at least 

 an equal height. Fourteen miles to the southwest stands the 

 Green Mountain range, whose highest summits rise 4,600 feet. 

 This ampitheatre of hills opens unprotected to the north and north- 

 east, and in winter the mercury is kept, even in the milder times, 

 pretty constantly below zero. I have known three weeks to pass 

 in which llie themoineter was not once above zero ; and hardly a 

 nisiht durino- the time in which it was not at least twenty degrees 

 below that point. ^Exceptional temperatures range downwards to 

 the freezing point of mercury, and below. This severe and long- 



