116 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



your vines? How trained? How trimmed, and when? Do 

 your grapes ripen well every year? How many vines have 

 you, and the kinds? What kinds do you recommend as best 

 adapted for Essex County soil, freest of disease and surest of 

 ripening? 



How many peach-trees have you, and the kinds? How old 

 are they? How old when set out for bearing? What was 

 your soil? How and when enriched since planting? How 

 trimmed? What kinds do you recommend for cultivation in 

 Essex County for eating? — for preserving? 



Have your grape-vines or peach-trees had any disease ? If 

 so, what have you done for it, and the effect? Give any other 

 information relating to grapes or peaches and their culture, 

 that you think might benefit our society. 



The response has been such that it has taken us out of the 

 old rut, with a good push ahead, and will be found in the 

 shape of statements appended to this report, which to myself 

 have proved interesting and instructive, and I feel assured 

 that they will prove so to others. They are submitted with- 

 out criticism or recommendation, for all interested to read 

 carefully and then form their own judgment of what is best 

 to plant and how to cultivate it, from the actual experience of 

 those right about them, ever remembering that no one is too 

 old to plant seed Avith the expectation of eating the fruit. I 

 have in mind Mrs. Riggs, residing not far from me, who, 

 when eighty-eight years of age, planted two peach-stones 

 from the fruit of the same tree, which made two trees, on one 

 of which the fruit is smaller and a fortnight earlier than the 

 other. Both have been in bearing three years. The first year 

 in bearing she sold a half-peck for eighty-seven cents, and 

 this fall, being ninety-five years of age, and smart at that, 

 after supplying her own family, sold a half-bushel of nice 

 peaches from the trees. 



David W. Low, Chairman. 



Statement of T. C. ThurloWy West Newhiiry. 



We have been in the business of raising vines, etc., for 

 many years ; have generally started our grape-vines from 

 two or three eye cuttings, wholly in open ground without 



