EXPORTATION OF FRUITS. 303 



an increase of more than five hundred per cent in five years. 

 Very little difficulty is experienced in the winter months ; but 

 arrangements have been made to ship in warm weather by 

 vessels with refrigerator compartments. 



As the refrigerating process becomes more and more per- 

 fect, it will aid largely the exportation, not only of apples, 

 but of more delicate fruits. Pears, peaches, and grapes have 

 been sent to England in good order; and it is confidently 

 expected that American peaches will soon be well known in 

 the markets of England. 



How great the progress ! Massachusetts, in fruit-culture 

 as well as in other departments of educational and industrial 

 life, has been a great leader ; and from her has emanated, in 

 the early history of American pomology, more than from any 

 other source, the wide-spread interest that has distinguished 

 our land. 



Now, Canada, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebras- 

 ka, California, Oregon, and other new States and Territories, 

 where the cultivation of fruits had scarcely commenced 

 when this Board was established, have made exhibitions of 

 fruit at the various sessions of the American Pomological 

 Society in Richmond, Boston, Chicago, and at the Centen- 

 nial, which have astonished the world with the progress made. 

 Thirty years ago, when this society was formed, the area of 

 fruit-culture and the value of our fruits was so limited, that 

 it was not thought worth while to collect the statistics. 

 Then many states, Canada, and Nova Scotia, had given but 

 little attention to fruit-culture, except that of apples. These 

 and other sections were deemed too far north for successful 

 fruit-cultivation. Now they produce large quantities of fine 

 fruits, even in the cold northern regions ; the Nova Scotia 

 Society having received four medals from the Royal Horti- 

 cultural Society in London, and the Ontario Society, at the 

 quarter Centennial session in Boston in 1873, the Wilder 

 Medal, for the best collection of fruits. 



The estimate by the government for the Centennial, last 

 year, furnished the following statistics of the fruit-culture of 

 our country : — 



The number of acres under cultivation in orchards, vines, 

 and small fruits, is estimated at 4,500,000. The number of 

 trees is estimated as follows: apples, 112,000,000; pears, 



