114 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETV. 



no knowledge of what they C3st me, but they kept me out of idle- 

 ness, while some others were smoking their pipes ; so I did not 

 acquire the tobacco habit, which I consider quite an item saved. I 

 make general farming my business and feed more apples to my 

 horses, colts, cattle and shoep than I sell. I can raise good hogs 

 with apples, the milk from my dairy and a little meal. 



"Every creature on the farm likes apples, even the hens and the 

 crows will steal my best apples with apparently as good taste and 

 as much skill as the veteran apple-buyer. About all of my apples 

 of good quality are sold by commission merchants in Boston, and 

 if I have but a few barrels to sell I often divide them equally and 

 send them to two men, they paying the freight from Bangor 

 (twenty cents per barrel by boat) and taking out their commissions. 

 I got net for them delivered in Bangor in 1891, $199.33 for 120 

 barrels, and I think it cost $60 to handle them and for barrels, 

 leaving me net $59.33. In 1892 I sold 135 barrels in the same 

 5vay for $311.55, and it cost $65 for barrels, and to handle them, 

 leaving me net S246.55 for them delivered in Bangor. 1 think the 

 apples used in the family, fed to stock and given away more than 

 paid six per cent on the investment, taxes, labor, taking care of 

 the trees, fertilizers, etc., so I cannot see but the above figures 

 show the net income. 



"From the foregoing I have on an average the two last years 

 $102.94 from four acres of land being half my orchard which is 

 $25.73 per acre, which is much more than any other four acres of 

 my 340 acre farm averages. Good orchard land sells for $10 per 

 acre, more or less as to locality, but good farms with much of the 

 land fit for an orchard may be bought for the cost of the buildings. 

 By a liberal supply of the Transactions of your Society showing the 

 boys and young men just how to take care of the old apple trees 

 and how to raise others you will do a great work. Inclosed is one 

 dollar to constitute me a member of your Society the coming year." 



E. A. Lapham of Pittston, one of our members and exhibitors, 

 is an active orchardist and has 200 trees, from which he receives 

 a good income, though many of the trees are young. He thinks the 

 net profit is twenty-five per cent. His first trees were set twenty- 

 three years ago and he thinks these pay him mox'e profit than any- 

 thing on his farm. He writes: "I am going to set some more 

 trees this year. It is no use to set out trees unless they are looked 

 after every year. Lots of people make mistakes here and set out 



