160 BOA.RD OF AGRICULTURE. 



meet witli success, as largo numbers of trees brought from 

 western nurseries have been sold in various sections of the 

 State, many of which, there is reason to believe, are not only 

 of kinds unsuited to our climate, but do not possess other 

 requisites to success. The expediency of planting these was 

 the subject under consideration at one of the evening conversa- 

 tional meetings of the Board of Agriculture, last winter, in 

 wliieh members of tlic Legislature and others participated, and 

 by all wlio had tried them, Avith one or two exceptions, they 

 were condemned in uiuiualified terms as worse than worthless. 

 It is obvious that such must be tlie case with any trees, unless 

 they are possessed of all the necessary requisites to success, as 

 otherwise, they will prove not only profitless, but yield p,ctual 

 disappointment, loss of money and labor, and what is more, of 

 valuable years, which no money can replace. 



Serious doubts have at times been entertained by many, lest 

 the market for fruit should become overstocked, and the price 

 fall below the cost of production. The fact that the production of 

 choice fruit in New England, has increased so rapidly, that the 

 porportionate quantity of good fruit now grown to each person, 

 is probably not less than a hundred fold greater than fifty years 

 ago, and vet the demand is greater and steadier and at hiii-her 

 prices than then, is perhaps sufficient to quiet any such appre- 

 hensions for the future, yet other considerations are not wanting. 



The value of fruit as a healthful staple article of diet, as 

 food, has yet scarcely begun to be appreciated, or else has been 

 long forgotten. It has been indulged in hitherto rather as a 

 luxury. Its value as food is, to say the least, strongly hinted 

 at in the Scriptural account of the Garden of Eden, in which w,e 

 are told that the Lord God planted every tree "good for food," 

 while grains and roots are not even mentioned. The home con- 

 sumption of fruit, it is believed, is yet to increase very largely. 

 Foreign markets, also, are open to us, and as is now well known, 

 Maine grown apples iiavc a firmer texture, a higher flavor, and 

 will keep longer than tliosc grown in States farther south, which 

 gives us an advantage in exportation. Such are now the facil- 

 ities of intercourse, that a short time suffices to carry goods 

 whither we will, and Europe alone is now ready to take all the 

 fruit which could be grown in Maine, even if every acre fit for 



