STATE HOKTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 243 



They consisted of several varieties of choice fruit. Apples, fifty varieties, of which I 

 select the following: Duchess of Oldenburg, Maiden's Blush, Ranibo, Henry Sweet- 

 ing, Northern Spy, New Leathercoat, Black Winter Sweeting, Rome Beauty and 

 .Jennetting are all hardy, good bearers, saleable and good fruit. Pears, thirty varieties; 

 the Flemish Beauty is my best pear. Peaches, seven varieties; the Early York and 

 Honest John are the best and most salable. . Plums, thirty varieties. Cherries, sixteen 

 varieties; the Early May and English May Duke are both hardy and good bearers. 

 In the fall of '46 I commenced setting an apple orchard of twenty acres, planting the 

 trees forty-four feet apart at right angles east and west by north and south. Many of 

 my trees, both stationery and nursery, were destroyed by the rab1)its, early frosts and 

 severe winters ; so that I now have but few^ trees of my first setting. The present year 

 however, I had of early and late near one thousand bushels of choice apples. Yester- 

 day I measured more than one dozen apple trees (mostly of my first setting) , measuring 

 girth, one foot above the ground, forty-two to fifty inches. They branch out from the 

 main stem three to four and a half feet above ground with spreading, well-balanced 

 tops, about seventeen to twenty feet in height, having a good show of health and vigor. 

 My pears, peaches and plums have not succeeded very well : indeed, my plums are a 

 total failure, and most of my cherries have also failed ; and as for pears and peaches 

 I cannot loudly boast without a blush. My quinces have not been very liealrhy or 

 productive, but my grapes, currants, gooseberries, and raspberries are unexception- 

 able, and taking my fruit and ornamental trees as a whole, I have no cause of com- 

 plaint, but much cause of ascription of praise and thanksgi\ing to the Author of all 

 Good. At the time of my Ijcginning here I had knowledge of but one orciiard of much 

 consequence in the north part of this county. That belonged to John Somerville, and 

 was beginning to bear. It is now the property of that worthy gentleman, Cliarles T. 

 Caraway. It is situated al)0Ut two miles east southeast of me. Orchards of i)romise 

 have since sprung up, and are springing up on every side of me. In the fall of '44 I 

 also brought both deciduous and evergreen ornamental trees. They were small— ten to 

 fifteen inches high; and, for aught I know, evergreens were first introduced into this 

 county l)y me, but now they are everywhere to be seen. My white pines now measure 

 (one foot above ground) thirty-three to forty-five inches in circumference and forty-five 

 Icet in height; Norway pines twenty-five to thirty-two inches girth, forty-five feet 

 high; fir balsam thirty to thirty-five inches, and fifty feet liigli; European w^eeping 

 spruce forty to forty-five inches in girth, and fifty leet high; red cedar thirty-five to 

 forty-two inches, and forty-five feet high; larch, a deciduous pine, twenty-five to 

 thirty inches, forty-five feet high, very durable timber; Chinese silverleaf, raised from 

 slips and cuttings, of nineteen to twenty-two years' growth, iheasure sixty-five to one 

 hundred inches in girth and fifty to seventy-five feet high. It is valued for shades and 

 summer wood. I am having some logs sawed, and think it will make good lumber for 

 many uses, if kept dry. Used for posts set in the ground it will not last more than 

 five years. Respectfully, 



ELIJAH BACON. 



P. S.— In hastily sketching the foregoing, I forgot to state that I was a frontier 

 settler for some two or three years, all north of me in this county being an expanse of 

 virgin prairie, abundantly stocked with wild flowers, grasses and venomous snakes; 

 but now much of it is in a good state of agricultural and horticultural husbandry. I 



