182 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



he about six inches. Five or six j^ears ago I got a man for 

 12 a day to go on and graft those trees. I think the chances 

 are altogether in favor of our picking next year fifty barrels 

 of apples from those trees. I think we picked about thirty 

 this year, and it is the off year. 



Mr. Lyman (of Southampton). Here in western Massa- 

 chusetts there are granite ledges where the ground can l)e 

 utilized for trees, not in a regular orchard, but in corners 

 where the soil is rich but is difficult to plough, and which 

 cannot be used for any other purpose except a sheep pasture, 

 perhaps. I have in mind one such orchard where it was said 

 that no trees would do well, and the owner gets a good crop 

 of nice apples there, and without any other fertilizer than 

 the sheep furnish which are pastured there, and I think 

 apples grown upon this rocky, granite soil are much nicer 

 than those grown on low and sandy soil. 



Secretary Gold (of the Connecticut Board of Agricult- 

 ure). Several things in the discussion to-day have inter- 

 ested me very much, and I may be able to add something to 

 some of them. Why should we plant orchards on hillsides 

 rather than on lowlands? We have had examples within 

 the last few years that furnish pretty good evidence that the 

 hillside orchards are better than those in the valleys and 

 upon level lands. We have had frosts that have destroyed 

 the fruit over a large section of our intervale land, and 

 reached on toward the hillsides sometimes by a straight line 

 right across the field from the lower lands to the orchards. 

 The fruit has all been killed, while on the upper portion we 

 have had a good crop. We have seen some effects upon the 

 forest trees of the same kind where the lower limbs were 

 killed. Some ten or fifteen years ago we saw it all about. 

 The lower limbs were killed by the frost, and the tops of 

 the trees were perfectly safe. I have seen that in apple 

 trees. The lower limbs were divested, not bearing apples, 

 while the top of the tree, the crown of it, was loaded with 

 choice fruit. Now, if we had gone up the hillside a little 

 further the whole tree would have been productive. 



With regard to the Baldwin being so perfectly hardy, it 

 is upon our hills and heavy land. When rightly treated it 

 is as hardy as any tree, more hardy, but there are some con- 



