224 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and give up, but I do not think that is the right doctrine. I 

 think the true principle is, the more of these obstacles we have, 

 the more we should be on the alert to fight them in every way 

 and shape. Take, for instance, the canker-worm. It has been 

 more or less in my region for many years. It appears some- 

 times almost periodically. I don't believe in the theory that it 

 comes once in seven years. "We can show accounts of it in this 

 region for two-thirds of a century, and I don't know but it goes 

 back further. It behaves very strangely. We had it in our 

 neighborhood a few years ago, and in part of the town it was 

 on one side of the road and not on the other. It will go into 

 an orchard and take the grafted fruit and leave the ungrafted. 

 Well, the canker-worm came to us in great abundance, perhaps 

 ten years ago, and my neighbors generally neglected it for a 

 year or two, and then gave up in despair. The moment I saw 

 them, (I had heard of them before,) I fought them hard. I 

 bought some tarred paper and tied it around my trees, six, eight 

 or ten inches wide, according to the size of the tree, tarred the 

 upper part, and let the tar drip down and catch on the rope that 

 the paper was tied with. I followed this up in the fall and win- 

 ter, and never had my trees eaten badly. I always caught enough 

 of the worms to prevent their increasing, and had fruit all the 

 time. I saved my crops by persistency, by the determination 

 to save them. I followed it up. The question is, will it pay to 

 follow it up ? Every man must judge for himself. I think it 

 will. I believe the crops of apples for the last two or three 

 years have paid the cultivator for his trouble. I have been 

 paid. I had twenty-five or thirty barrels this year ; they paid 

 me well. So with pear trees, and every other tree that a man 

 thinks it worth while to cultivate. Be vigilant, take time by 

 the forelock, and keep the enemy' down. I love fruit culture 

 so much that I would willingly do almost anything. Had I 

 been Adam, when the command was given not to eat the for- 

 bidden fruit, I would have kept that command, if for no other 

 reason, for the sake of staying in the garden. I think that to 

 live in a garden is next to living in heaven. I don't know as I 

 should have liked to sit down and eat the fruit and smell the 

 flowers without doing any work. I think if I was to live in a 

 fruit garden I should want to work. 



