66 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



and orchards developed varieties of fruit and develo])ed the 

 character of fruit, developed color and quality m fruit, not 

 alone in the apple, but in the peach, pear, grape and cherry, 

 which very soon indicated that New York state was g"oing 

 to 'be a great commercial fruit growing state, and commer- 

 cial apple growing did not oome in until along in the last 

 century, when we find that there were some rather large 

 plantings. That was further developed in the early half of 

 the nineteenth century, but it was not until about 1850 to 

 1860, just following the Civil War, that we find any of our 

 great commercial orchards put out. Possibly the farmers did 

 not depend upon those orchards for their money returns at tliat 

 time as much as we depend on them to-day. We hear it said that 

 the codling moth and the various other insect pests that we hear 

 so much about now were not so prevalent in those days. Pos- 

 sibly they were not, but I am rather of the opinion that the 

 farmers of that time did not observe conditions with suffi- 

 cient care. They were not dependent upon fruit for their 

 bread and butter to as great an extent as they were on wheat, 

 corn, and the other staples of life. We were making our 

 money in those days and paying our interest and taxes from 

 those crops, and our fruit was more of a side issue, but the 

 time came when those great commercial plantings of 1850 to 

 1860 came into bearing. A great many of them, planted a 

 Httle later, came into bearing along in 1880, and then the 

 farmers began to see that they were getting a fine crop, that 

 they were making lots of money from it, and then they be- 

 gan to wake up. But here was the trouble, — they began to 

 find that it was impossible to depend upon the apple orchard 

 as a steady income producer. It was erratic. They foimd 

 that their orchards bore one year and not the next, and, in 

 consequence, they began to depend less and less upon their 

 apple crop, and so we find that from 1880 to 1885 and 1890 

 there came in a period which we may well call a period of 

 depression in the fruit industry. These large orchards had 

 come into bearing and should have been giving good returns, 

 but they were not depended upon just at that time, and the 



