CHAPTEE 



1850 1885- U THE HOME ON THE HILLSIDE" THEN AND NOW. 



Mr. William Pooler, one of our present neighbors, built in 1853 

 and resided in the house now known as " The Home on the Hill- 

 Bide." He forwards us the following communication. 



" I think it was about 1850, that I purchased the place on which 

 you now live. Wellsville was then in the woods, and the Erie 

 road had been built through from New York to Dunkirk. I had 

 been familiar with hardpan lands in Chenango and other counties 

 of the Southern Tier, and had done something of subsoiling in 

 more ways than one, and had become convinced that Allegany 

 hardpan had only to be properly treated, and it could be made 

 rich and productive. My hillside had been cleared for several 

 years being one of the earliest lots improved in what is now Wells- 

 ville, then the town of Scio. 



"There was an old orchard on the place, and also a tree 

 which I shall never forget. It was not in the orchard but stood 

 by itself, a little to the northwest of the house, and was a Koxbury 

 russet; no more worthless fruit could have been anywhere found. 

 Yesterday (Sept. 22, 1885) I plucked from this tree two apples; 

 one the smallest I could find, the other of average size of those 

 with which the tree was so loaded as to bow its branches to the 

 ground upon which the lower limbs rested. I should judge there 

 were twenty-five bushels of apples on this tree two thirds grown. 



