274 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



which, however, are quite different from the ' Kelsey.' The Loquat is often called 

 a Japan plum, but I do not intend to include that imit. Mr. A, D. Pryal, of North 

 Temescaf, has shown at the fairs and at tlic meetings of the State Horticultural So- 

 ciety several plums of Japanese origin. They vary considerably in form, size, and 

 color from each other, and are aU more regular in outline than the Kelsey. Mr. 

 Pryal has Japanese names for them. Mr. James Shinn, of Niles, Alameda County, 

 also has a collection of Japanese plums, varying in color from lemon yellow to dark 

 red, and very different in flavor; one variety I remember is of especial sweetness. 



The Kelsey Japan Plum has been worked on different stocks by our nurserymen, 

 and there is some difference of opinion as to results. Considerable plantations have 

 been made, but I am not aware that the market value and adaptations of the fruit 

 have yet been fully determined. 



ORCHARDING IN NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND. 

 By T. H. HosKiNS, M. D. 



By request of the Pomologist of the Department of Agriculture I am induced to 

 give a sketch of the introduction of the culture of tree fruits into those parts of New 

 England adjacent to the Canadian Dominion. All of this section of countiy has 

 been settled during the present centviry, and most of it within fifty years. The first 

 considerable advent of population into Northeastern Vermont was about the period 

 of the war of 1813. This continued subsequently until the population in 1860 was 

 nearly as dense as in any part of the State. 



The early settlers made frequent attempts to grow the tree fruits of their native 

 States, and not without success, until they got as far north as the mouth of Passumpsic 

 (about 44 degrees North). Up to this point even the Baldwin can be grown, top- 

 grafted into hardier trees, in favorable spots, but not profitably, on the commercial 

 scale, far above the mouth of the White River (about 43 degrees North). The Baldwin, 

 with the Rhode Island Greening and Roxbury Russet, but little hardier, are the great 

 market apples of New England ; and it was difficult to find anything to adequately 

 replace them, though the McLeUan of Connecticut, Jewett's Fine Red (Nodhead) of 

 New Hampsliire, and later the Northern Spy and the Bethel (the last a native 

 seedling of the Connecticut Valley town of that name), were adopted as^ substitutes 

 to some extent. 



Following up the Passumpsic Valley nearly due north, and rising fast in altitude, 

 the last towTis in which orcharding was made even moderately successful, until 

 within the last twenty years, were Barnet, Peacham, and Danville, in Caledonia 

 County. Those who pushed over the divide and settled Orleans County, south of 

 and around Lake Memphremagog, though they planted many seedling orchards, 

 occasional ti-ees of which maintained a struggling existence, never were able to pro- 

 duce marketable fruit to any appreciable extent, and until the advent of the rail- 

 road, about 1862, good eatmg apples were about as much of a rarity as oranges there. 

 It may as weU be noted here that the apple-producing region of the Saint Lawrence 

 River extends not far below Montreal and only a few miles up the tributary valleys 

 of the south bank. The altitude of Lake Memphremagog is about 800 feet above the 

 sea, but the country around it rises from that to 1,500 feet, at which last-named 

 height are found many of the best dauy farms. In the same latitude, 50 miles 

 west, on Lake Champlain, less than 100 hundred feet above the sea, in a low vaUey 

 extending from the Atlantic at the mouth of the Hudson to I\Iontreal, all the tree 

 fruits of lower New England, except the peach, are successfully grown. This dif- 

 ference in altitude is fully equivalent to tlu-ee degrees of latitude in its effect on 

 orchard fruits. 



About the year 1864 a number of improved Siberian crab seedlings — most of them 

 evidently a cross with the Famevise, so extensively grown about Montreal — were in- 

 troduced from Canada, and planted in Orleans, Essex, and Caledonia Counties. 

 These were the fii'st apple trees genuinely successful in that section. They were 

 peddled at $1.50 each, and were eagerly bought. One dealer claimed, I have no 

 doubt truly, to have sold $42,000 worth in a single year. Three years afterwards 

 the writer planted on his farm, near Newport, on the lake, an orchard, in which 

 were set the Tetofsky, Duchess of Oldenbvirgh, Red and Wliite Astrachan and Alex- 

 ander — all Russian api^les, wliich had been grown many years in Eastern IMassachu- 

 setts, from whence he had removed the previous year. To these were added many 

 of the crab hybrids, and an apple from IMontreal, some time before imported from 

 Normandy, in France, and now known to pomology as the Peach of Montreal. Be- 

 sides these, thirty other varieties, called the hardiest in Maine, New Hampshire, and 

 Canada, were planted. Among these the only true iron-clad found was the Bethel 

 of Vermont, though Fameuse, Ben Davis, and Sops of Win.e have jDroved sufSciently 



