FRUITS. 201 



health and life of man than to the salubrity of the climate and 

 the fertility of the soil, I doubt not can be demonstrated. The 

 principle of compensation pervades all nature, and the earth in 

 all its parts is adapted to the wants and needs of man. So, 

 though I may not be able to show how the presence and growth 

 of forest trees absorb from decaying vegetable matter those 

 properties which, diffused in gases in the atmosphere, would 

 breed typhus and other types of malignant fevers, and causes 

 them to contribute the phosphorus and the potash essential to 

 the growth of the trees, or how the shelter and protection of 

 the thickly growing wood from the fury of the winter's wind 

 may save the population from consumption's stealthy approach, 

 or the shaking up of fever and ague, yet who can doubt that 

 such is the fact ? 



And to conclude, it is with the belief that the farmers of 

 "Worcester West would not only increase the beauty and attract- 

 iveness of their section of the Commonwealth, preserve its 

 desirableness as an abiding place for the rewards the ground 

 shall repay for labor, and the comfort and health which its peren- 

 nial springs and running streams shall bear to its population, 

 but also find individually and collectively a source of present 

 profit, that we commend to their attention what in the oldest 

 and best educated nation in Modern Europe has a professorship 

 in its universities, — the best methods for the cultivation and 



management of forest trees. 



Edwin Woods, Chairman. 



FRUITS. 



ESSEX. 



Statement of B. F. Huntington, of Amesbury. 

 Strawberries. — The crop of strawberries which I present for 

 premium was raised on thirty-two rods of land, which was 

 formerly an old onion bed, and had been manured for the crop 

 with stable manure. No manure was used for the strawberries 

 except leached ashes. The plants were set in the spring of 

 1870. 



26* 



