192 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



higher lying portions of the field. Therefore I am of neces- 

 sity obliged to keep my orchards more or less in grass, and 

 if in grass land, how are they to be treated? Top-dressing, 

 if in meadow, is a necessity ; but pasturing seems to be a 

 better application for keeping up the fertility of the soil, and 

 also for destroying the apple-worm, in one stage of its prog- 

 ress. An orchard which had arrived at maturity and was 

 going to decay, was turned by me into a cow-pasture, and 

 my herd of cows resorted to it as a favorite place to spend 

 those leisure hours of the day which Dr. Loring has so beau- 

 tifully described as better spent in busying themselves in 

 gathering herbage ; but nevertheless, they have sought to 

 spend their days beneath the shade of those apple-trees, and 

 they have picked up every early dropping apple, from the 

 smallest size, until they attained maturity in September, when 

 we have been oblisfed to close the orchard. The result has 

 been an increased vigor in those trees, and a wonderful im- 

 provement in the quality of the fruit produced by them. The 

 operation has now been continued about ten years, and this 

 year my men remarked with regard to that orchard, that they 

 had the most beautiful Greenings there they had ever seen ; 

 they were perfect. Another orchard I devote to the pasturing 

 of sheep, which I consider preferable to cattle to put in an 

 orchard, and would recommend them. With regard to swine, 

 I have tried those in my orchard, and they did very well, but 

 they did a little too much, sometimes. They went a little too ' 

 deep, and in default of something else, laid hold of the roots, 

 and it is a little dangerous sometimes to turn many swine 

 into an orchard. It should be allowed with caution. But I 

 believe with the help of these, our country friends, — our 

 cattle, our sheep, and our swine, — and with a little of that 

 prudence and care and skill that we must exercise to farm it 

 successfully here and in Connecticut, we can raise fruits suc- 

 cessfully ; and then look at our advantages in transportation 

 over the Western farmers ! Have you ever thought what it 

 costs those Western men to get their crops to market? I 

 bought a car-load of bran that cost me twenty dollars, and I 

 knew how much the Western miller got for his share. How 

 much the farmer got for the grain, I never knew, but the 

 miller got eight dollars a ton for that car-load ; the bran cost 



