DIVISION SIXTEENTH: 



HORTICULTURE. 



CULTIVATION OF THE ORCHARD AND GARDEN. 



The Value of Fruit in Farm Management There is 

 no farmer who appreciates the profit, and also the pleasure which, 

 both himself and his family may derive from his occupation, who 

 will not admit the desirability of growing fruit upon his farm. The 

 fruits of which our climate is capable are as necessary as food articles 

 as any other which can be consumed, and their use would go a long 

 way toward the prevention of many ailments, besides being whole- 

 some and agreeable. Aside from this, the cultivation of fruit affords 

 both pleasure and profit. 



From another point of view the farmer in our country will find 

 the cultivation of fruit desirable. It will enhance the value of the 

 land which he occupies. An orchard well located and in good con- 

 dition, well cultivated and containing desirable fruits, which have 

 been selected with care, will have a greater weight, when a farmer 

 comes to offer his farm to a purchaser, than many other induce- 

 ments which he might hold out, although the latter may have been 

 created by the expenditure of much larger sums of money. Moreover, 

 the fruit trees, once started on a favorable growth, cost nothing, 

 while they yield an annual return and continue yearly to increase in 

 value. The only thing they owe to the farmer is the cost of rent of 

 the ground they occupy, and while the orchard space may be cropped 

 to almost as good advantage as any other portion of the farm, it is 

 useful in many other ways. The farm which is without an orchard 

 is destitute of one of the most desirable and attractive elements 

 which its owner can produce from the soil, and one moreover capable 

 of an easy and certain profit, if the directions which it is the purpose 

 of this department to give are followed with reasonable fidelity. 

 There are of course, conditions of climate and soil under which the 

 growth of fruit is attended with discouraging difficulties and draw- 

 backs, which render success almost impossible. Still there is hardly 

 any locality in which some kind of fruit will not thrive, and if it ia 

 only a plum orchard, the beauty it adds to the homestead, and the 

 substantial returns it will give for the care and labor bestowed upon 

 it, will well recompense the farmer for the cost of its possession. 



