408 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



No one who has sufficient land can afford to do without a well 

 arranged garden. He should raise a full supply of vegetables, 

 fruit and flowers. Every person who owns one-half acre of land 

 can raise all the green corn, peas, beans, cucumbers, and all tho 

 other varieties of garden vegetables, all the stawberries, raspber- 

 ries, currants, gooseberries, and apples to supply his family, 

 besides he can have his pear trees, cherry trees, plum trees and 

 grape vines, and his flower garden. All these luxuries can be 

 produced from one-half acre of land when well cultivated. Tho 

 poor as well as the rich may have them all. If every person in 

 Maine owning one-half an acre of land would place it under such 

 a state of cultivation, one might well exclaim in passing through 

 our northeastern portion of New England, "This truly is the 

 garden pf Eden, the Paradise of America." How beautiful and 

 useful might our cities and villages be made if every laud owner 

 would but cultivate one-half an acre with all these varieties. The 

 whole State would be vastly improved in prosperity, beauty and 

 in happiness. The farmer cannot afford to be without his straw- 

 berry bed and his raspberry patch. It will ,cost him less to 

 cultivate them than it will to gather the wild. Picture to yourself, 

 in imagination, a more delicious or tempting dish, than a saucer of 

 the Wilson strawberry, half hidden in the rich cream from the 

 dairy of the farmer. Fuller, I think it was, in speaking of the 

 strawberry, once said, "God might have made a more delicious 

 . fruit, but it was quite certain he never did." They are the first in 

 the season. They come after the long and dreary winter to delight 

 our taste and sharpen our appetites. In their order and adapted 

 to our wants and for the preservation of our health, come the 

 raspberry, currant, gooseberry, blackberry, cranberry and the 

 other varieties of small fruit, and with them the cherries and 

 plums, and then come the pears and the apples, if not the most 

 delicious the most useful of all. 



These have all been provided by a wise Providence in their 

 season for our use and health, and we should not fail to do our 

 part to obtain them. The best varieties and mode of cultivation I 

 will leave for the discussion which may follow this paper, as my 

 purpose is to encourage their production. All who have children 

 should do something towards their cultivation ; for fruit and 

 flowers are especially attractive to children, and if we commence 

 by example it will be very easy to teach them. Once interested 

 in the work they will find it a pleasure rather than labor. 



