490 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



occupying six acres in all, — or rather it was expected to occupy six acres, when 

 all planted. Two laborers were hired to do the digging and hoeing, and the two 

 young and industrious proprietors did the pruning, budding, and grafting. I 

 have since visited that nursery many times, — or rather, I have visited the 

 nursery of the same proprietors, at the same spot, — for its boundaries have now 

 extended beyond those of the six acres, and for many years it has occupied 

 more than six hundred densely planted acres ; and, according to my own esti- 

 mate, it has sent out, to be planted in all parts of the Union, including Cali- 

 fornia, into Europe and Asia, and even to far Australia, no less than twenty 

 million orchard fruit trees. About 35 years ago, a IS'ew England nurseryman, 

 as he informed me, had occupied one whole acre with nursery fruit trees ; and 

 he had the boldness and enterprise to add two acres more. His neighbors held 

 up their hands in astonishment, exclaiming, "Where will you find market for 

 all these trees'?" He did, however, find a market for them, and some nursery- 

 men besides have done the same, for in less than twenty years from this date, 

 Ellwanger & Barry, of Rochester, had increased their nursery of six acres in 

 1839, to more than 400 acres in 1858, and other nurseries in the eastern, mid- 

 dle, and western States had become extended to hundreds of acres each. 



There are now in the United States more than 10,000 acres actually under 

 compact nursery growth, of which Eochester and Geneva occupy more than 

 one-half, perhaps, more than two-thirds. Eochester has been long filmed for 

 its nurseries; Geneva has arisen within a few years, and has fully equaled, if 

 not excelled it, and it is worth a long journey to any one interested in fruit 

 culture to visit that beautiful place in the summer season, and witness the 

 rich undulating surface of the country, with its thousands of acres of nursery 

 trees, stretching in every direction ; and, during the digging, packing, and 

 shipping season, it is one wide scene of commotion, with its swarms of laborers, 

 its lines of loaded wagons, and the long and ponderous trains starting out with 

 their tens of thousands of trees for all parts of the Union. 



NURSEEIES STILL IXSUFFICIEXT. 



Some one asks, " What becomes of all these trees ? AVill not the whole Union 

 become flooded with them ? Will not every city and country market become 

 glutted with the fruit?"' The number of trees, it is admitted, which are 

 yearly set out amount to no less than fifteen, and perhaps twenty millions. 

 Let us examine, for a inoment, how far these would go in supplying the pres- 

 ent population of the country (to say nothing of foreign shipments), with the 

 yearly circle of fruits. We have about 40,000,000 of people, — one tree annually 

 to two inhabitants. Would this be sufficient to keep up an annual supply and 

 an annual succession ? A single family of ten persons will want about 50 

 apple trees, 50 pear trees, and 50 to 100 various other trees, and many vines 

 and bushes for small fruits. The present nurseries will supply five trees annu- 

 ally to these ten persons, — hardly enough to sustain all the orchards from their 

 natural decay, even if none Avere lost by transplanting, by deficient culture, by 

 the intense cold of our Avinters, and by various insects and diseases, not count- 

 ing the large number required for the extensive market orchards which are 

 annually set out. It may therefore be laid down, as a truth, that our present 

 extensive area of nurseries are not sufficient to keep up the annual decay of 

 moderate orchards for each family, to say nothing of the enormous demand 

 which would be required for each land-owner to set out new and full planta- 

 tions. 



