382 [Assembly 



trees, and the production of Essays on Fruit Culture, have 

 awakened, throughout the county, a taste for planting, Avhicli 

 amounts T\'ell nigh to enthusiasm. During the years 1850 and '51, 

 there were probably planted out in orchards in this county, not 

 less than 20,000 apples trees, of the choicest engrafted varieties; 

 and in gardens as many as 2,000 pear trees and an equal number 

 of other kinds of fruit trees ; aud still the operation of planting 

 appears to have but just commenced. All this, be it remember- 

 ed, is so much added to the jjroductive capital of the county. If 

 this planting should continue, as there is every reason to believe it 

 willj increasing in the same ratio as during the past two years, 

 for the next ten, the whole number of trees thus planted out, 

 will then exceed half a million ; or even if it should only con- 

 tinue at the present rate for that term of years, the number would 

 still amount to more than a quarter of a million of trees ! 



^' Of the immense advantages likely to accrue to the county from 

 this one branch of our agriculture, which may, not inaptly, be 

 styled a new creation of this society, rather than an improve- 

 ment, few as yet have probably any adequate conception. The 

 product of half a million trees, in full bearing, may be estima- 

 ted at t,vo and a half millions of bushels annually, and still leave 

 a wide margin for failures, from the vicissitudes of seasons, in- 

 sects, and disease. Of this amount, after allowing to the farmers 

 of the county, for use in the family and upon the farm, half a 

 million of bushels, or about 250 bushels to each family, a balance 

 would be left for sale^ of two million bushels ! And this quan- 

 tity, at 2 shillings pr. bushel, half the price of good grafted apples 

 now a days, would amount to the nice little sum of half a million 

 dollars ! which exceeds the aggregate annual amount of sales for 

 any one crop, or for any two crops, now raised in the county. 



Improvement in Fertilizers, 



^'Thus, in nearly every department of our husbandry, has im- 

 provement been going on. It was not until within the last few 

 years, that the compost heap was ever seen, or the uss of gypsum 

 as an absorbent introduced, or the value of peat or sw^amp muck 

 known. Why gentlemen, ten years ago the farmers of this county, 

 generally, no more thought of the manuf\ctur£ of maniu'e as one 



