THERE IS PROGRESS, 



BY T. C. PETERS. 



"WAS very much pleased with an article in the Septciuber 

 number on the ''Progress of Horticulture/' and the 

 question ''Is there any?" 



If you will allow a little time and space to a plain 

 country farmer he would be pleased to tell you some of 

 his experience. 



While a boy, he was fond of good fnaits, and whenever 

 he found any or heard from others of that which was an 

 improved variety, he used to get scions, and set them in 

 the old, or rather then a young orchard. Last year he 

 picked upwards of twenty bushels of Rhode Island Greenings from a tree which he 

 budded as a matter of idle pastime when a young man. 



In 1830 he had read some of Major Adlum's communications on the native grape, 

 and sent to him for cuttings. But not living much at home for some years after 

 they wore put out, and having no practical knowledge of cultivation, no fruit came 

 of them except ridicule. But after having seen vineyards and vine-clad hills, he 

 succeeded in raising a good supply of the Isabella, and they are as common to his 

 family as apples. A few years, only some ten past, he became a permanent fixture, 

 and then set his heart upon having some choice pears. For the last three years he 

 has had a very good supply, and this year he gathers several bushels, while neigh- 

 bors have none, for they said when he set out his trees, that it took them so long to 

 bear he would never live to enjoy their fruit. He has had some luscious morsels 

 from his Bartletts, and he has now some fine specimens of the Vergalied, Stevens' 

 Genessee, Maria Louise, Bonne de Jersey, Seckel, and some dozen other choice sorts, 

 and he finds among them daily enough that have ripened to make him pity those 

 persons who had no faith and planted no trees. 



His cherry trees planted the same year have borne for some time, so that he is 

 now well supplied with choice fruit of his own -growing, and he can calculate upon 

 having it for the whole year, for his apples keep until the small fniits of spring come 

 in, and there is no cessation of the blessings of a good Providence, during all the 

 seasons. 



He is sometimes vexed when his careless neighbors steal his fruit, but takes heart 

 in the hope that the taste may breed a desire to have it of their own growing. He 

 takes great pains to distribute grape cuttings and scions of choice fmits, and straw- 

 berry plants, but the demand is not as large as one would suppose. Still there is a 

 marked progress in Horticulture. The Horticulturist is silently and rapidly expand- 



