44 TKANSAOTIONS OF TIIK II>i,lN()lS 



for sale; whether Father Tice, or old "Probabilities;" however, you 

 need not send for one yet, as they will be around again before you will 

 want to use one of them. 



We have also in our town another thing, new to us, which I think a 

 good thing, or soon will be, to pack fruit in, as it has already proved first- 

 rate for packing lime, flour, etc., etc. It is an air-tight and water-tight 

 paper barrel, manufactured by M. P. Ayres & Co. So, you see, we raise 

 wheat on straw stalks, and stack it in straw stacks, pack it in straw bar- 

 rels, and, I fear, sometimes feed to straw men, down our way. It would 

 save a vast deal of bruising, rotting and loss if we could handle our fruit 

 in the same way. 



I have also heard of one or two apple-gatherers from Adams county, 

 said to be good things, but I have not tried them. 



Grapes. — Mr. Craven, of our city, meets with remarkable success, 

 both as to yield and quality, in training his Concord grapes fan-shaped, 

 on a trellis very close to the ground, and very closely cut back. Profes- 

 sor Standish, of Galesburg, is equally successful, by close and careful 

 pruning ; though I think, by the upright system, in part at least, a few 

 vines in a garden, with a little skill and care, will bear an enormous quan- 

 tity of grapes on any dry, suitable soil ; and generally the dryer the bet- 

 ter ; but they will pay far more than their cost, to any family, if left to 

 run wholly at random. It may not pay to market them, but I have 

 always made an enormous percentage of clear profit in eating them. 



Pears — As to pears, the trees still blight : our soil and climate is not 

 favorable to them. I have myself cured the pear-blight more times than 

 I have the Asiatic and the hog cholera, both put together. I have cured 

 several trees — as the Irishman cured the widow's husband, "until he 

 died ;" but I still eat pears, out of pure spite. 



Peaches in the Third District generally grow well and do well when 

 not taken by the frost ; but that happens so often that there is little profit 

 in attempting to raise them for the markets abroad. One-half the time 

 we do not get enough for our local markets.* 



Small fmits that are perfectly hardy do reasonably well. 



Plums are good for nothing, except to breed Curculios, to bite, and 

 injuje, and destroy all other fruits ; that is, as they are almost universally 

 managed. 



The hardy Cherries do reasonably well; and the birds do still better, 

 about the time they are ripening. For several years they took all the 

 fruit, of all sorts, I had on my place, and paid me in songs, until I began 

 to hand them back the change in shot ; since then they have not bought 

 so freely. I have discovered that they are great inflationists, as well as 

 great singers ; they decidedly prefer paper to a metallic currency. Our 

 great standard fruit, apples, they do not ordinarily molest, and beyond 

 all doubt are a very great advantage to the orchard. When plenty they 



* One single seedling peach tree on my grounds has borne fruit each year of our 

 past cold winters, in one of which the thermometer in town, for about one hour before 

 daylight, was reported at forty degrees below zero. 



