410 BOARD OF AGRICULTUK12. 



table, and the quantity consumed will make up in profit to the dealer 

 what is lost in lessening its price. A few years and the apple will be 

 a matter of reclioning by farmers and speculators just as is now the 

 potato crop, the pork, etc. Nor will it create a home market alone. By 

 care it may be exported with such facility, that the world will receive 

 it as a part of its diet. It will, in this respect, follow the history of grains 

 and edible roots, and from a local and limited use, the apple and the 

 pear will become articles of universal demand. The reasons of such 

 an opinion are few and simple. It is a fruit always palatable, and 

 as such, will be welcome to mankind, whatever their tastes, if it can 

 be brought within their reach. The Westei-n States will, before many 

 ,years, be forested with orchards. The fruit bears exportation kindly. 

 Thus there will be a supply, a possibility of distributing it by commerce, 

 to meet a taste already existing. These views may seem fanciful— may 

 prove so, but they are analogical. Nor, if I inherit my three score and ten 

 do I expect to die until the apple crop of the United States shall surpass 

 the potato crop in value, both for man and beast. It has the double 

 quality of palatableness, raw or cooked, it is a permanent crop, not re- 

 quiring annual planting, and it produces more bushels to the acre than 

 corn, wheat, or, on an average, potatoes. The calculations may be made, 

 allowing an average of fifteen bushels to a tree. The same reasoning is 

 true of the pear; it and the apple are to hold a place yet, as universal 

 eatables, a fruit grain not known in their past history.* If not, another 

 tree should be set in this county (Marion county), in ten years the 

 annual crop of apples will be 200,000 bushels. But Wayne county has 

 double our number of trees; suppose however, the ninety counties of 

 Indiana to have only twenty-five trees to a quarter section of land, i. e., 

 to each 160 acres, the crop, of fifteen bushels to a tree, would be nearly 

 2,000,000. 



Small Fruits and Pieplant. 



The past year has greatly increased the cultivation of small fruits 

 in the State. Strawberries are found in almost every garden, and of the 

 select sorts. None among them all is more popular or deservedly so, than 

 Hovey's seedling. We have a native white strawberry, removed from 

 our meadows to our gardens, which produces fruit of superior fragrance 

 and flavor. The crop is not large, but continues ripening for many 

 weeks. The blackberry is introduced into the garden among us. 

 The fruit sells on our market for from three to five cents. Profit is not, 

 therefore, the motive for cultivating it, but improvement. I have a white 

 variety. What color is a blackberry when it is green? We used to say 

 red, but now we have blackberries that are white, and gi-een blackberries 

 which are red. Assorted goosebenies and the new raspbeiTies, Franconia 



'•'Fruit grain is evidently a typographical error for prouiinenee. 



