387 



one of the best farmers in the county, whose trees were in the 

 most healthy and perfect condition possible, what wash he ap- 

 plied to the bark, he answered the only wash he applied was 

 to the roots ; that is, he kept the trees themselves enriched and 

 cultivated in as careful a manner, as he wouli if they had 

 been the most delicate and valued exotics. An apple-tree grow- 

 ing in Kingston, Plymouth county, and planted in the year 

 1669, the year of Philip's war, bore, in 1838, thirty bushels of 

 good fruit. It is a high-top sweeting, a favorite apple among 

 the settlers of the Old Colony. Many of these trees, planted 

 many long years ago, still remain, productive, and of a large 

 size. They resemble the pilgrim fathers and their early des- 

 cendants in the vigor of their growth and the energy of their 

 endurance ; and the virtues of the good men whom they have 

 survived, in the sweet and precious fruit, which they continue 

 to yield. 



The largest apple-tree, which I recollect, I found in Duxbu- 

 ry, in the same county ; and it was evidently an early settler. 

 On measuring it, I found its girth at the smallest part six feet 

 seven inches, at the dividing of the limbs, twelve feet five in- 

 ches, and the girth of one of the limbs, two feet five inches. 

 It produced in one year, 1211 bushels. 



The fine orchards in the highly cultivated districts of West 

 Cambridge, to which I have referred, have been, in a great de- 

 gree, exempt from the scourges of the canker-worm, from which 

 others, in places not very far distant from them, have suffered. 

 Some of the farmers have given as a reason for this exemption, 

 that they make friends with the birds, never suffering one of them 

 to be disturbed, or scared, or killed. The birds, grateful for 

 this hospitality, destroy the canker-worms, who are much like 

 pirates, who plunder the cargo and burn up the vessel. I am 

 not convinced that the bu'ds are entitled to all the credit in the 

 case, though, undoubtedly, they should have a due share of it ; 

 but the protection which these good farmers show to the inno- 

 cent and defenceless, is as creditable to their humanity as to 

 their discretion. The birds are, in general, good friends to the 



