INTR OD UCTIUX. 1 3 



as larger farm throughout these States, and are quite com- 

 monly found even on the petty holdings of the poorer me- 

 chanics and workmen in every village, and in the suburbs 

 and outskirts of every city. I can recall nothing like it 

 abroad, save in two or three of the least mountainous and 

 most fertile districts of Northern Switzerland. Italy has 

 some approach to it in the venerable olive-trees which sur- 

 round or flank many, perhaps most, of her farm-houses, up- 

 holding grape-vines as ancient and nearly as large as them- 

 selves; but the average New England or Middle State 

 homestead, with its ample apple orchard and its cluster of 

 pear, cherry, and plum trees surrounding its house, and dot- 

 ting or belting its garden, has an air of comfort and mod- 

 est thrift which I have nowhere else seen fairly equalled. 



On the whole, I deem it a misfortune that our Northern 

 States were so admirably adapted to the apple and kindred 

 fruit-trees, that our pioneer forefathers had little more to 

 do than bury the seeds in the ground and wait a few years 

 for the resulting fruit. The soil, formed of decayed trees 

 and their foliage, thickly covered with the ashes of the prim- 

 itive forest, was as genial as soil could be ; while the re- 

 maining woods, which still covered seven-eighths of the 

 country, shut out or softened the cold winds of winter and 

 spring, rendering it less difficult, a century ago, to grow 

 fine peaches in Southern New Hampshire than it now is 

 in Southern New York. Snows fell more heavily, and lay 

 longer, then than now, protecting the roots from heavy 

 frosts, and keeping back buds and blossoms in spring, to 

 the signal advantage of the husbandman. I estimate that 

 my apple-trees would bear at least one-third more fruit if I 

 could retard their blossoming a fortnight, so as to avoid 

 the cold rains and cutting winds, often succeeded by frosts, 

 which are apt to pay their unwelcome farewell visits just 

 when my trees are in bloom, or when the fruit is forming 



