1350 Department of Agriculture 



who followed in the wake of Csesar's invasion of Britain carried 

 with them the best of the old Roman varieties of fruits, so did 

 the immigrants from Great Britain bring to America the seeds 

 and eions of those Roman varieties transplanted into the mother 

 country eighteen centuries before. These cions brought from 

 Europe were grafted upon the native fruit trees, and from that 

 day to this the careful selection and propagation of the fruits 

 common to the temperate zone have gone forward, and with 

 each migration of settlers cuttings and seeds of favorite fruits 

 have traveled west and north until every section of North 

 America is dotted with orchards, the products of which form one 

 of the greatest sources of the nation's food supply. 



The apple, the pear, the plum, the cherry and the grape were 

 those fruits which at first received the attention of the newly 

 arrived colonists, but the smaller fruits — the strawberry, the 

 raspberry, the blackberry and the currant, not as we know them 

 to-day but some of their prototypes — were already here awaiting 

 the arrival of the first settlers. 



The apple seems to have been primarily cultivated by I^ew 

 England folk for the manufacture of eider, for as early as 1639 

 one man is reported as having five hundred barrels of cider, and 

 in 172G a village near Boston produced ten thousand barrels of 

 cider. 



Wonderful improvement of varieties and extensive plantings 

 the whole country over, especially in this State, have served to 

 bring the value of the fruit yield of the United States up to the 

 enormous amount of $131,423,517 annually, of which New York's 

 contribution was 12.1 per cent.,* or more than $15,000,000. 



Were it not for the subtropical fruit crop of California, New 

 York, the Empire State, would be the empire state in fmit pro- 

 duction, leading all others in amount and value of the product. 



New York ranks among the states of the Union: first in the 

 production of apples and small fruits; second in grapes and pears; 

 third in plums; and fourth in cherries. 



Chautauqua county alone produces more value in grapes than 

 any state except California. Niagara and Monroe counties pro- 



• Census of 1900. 



