No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING. 183 



clitions under which it fails. You recollect some dozen years 

 ago when we had that terrible winter that affected our farm- 

 ers and their fruit trees so injuriously, and especially our 

 Baldwins planted for hedges and other purposes. The Bald- 

 win upon our hills remained perfectly healthy and sound, 

 but in our valley locations, with a warm, gravelly soil, whole 

 orchards were destroyed. There were a good many reasons 

 given for this destruction of trees that winter, and the con- 

 clusion seems to have been that the soil was very dry. We 

 entered the winter with scarcely any water in the ground, 

 and we had zero weather for several days in succession, 

 accompanied by a most piercing, drying wind. It took all 

 the moisture out of the top of the tree and the roots were 

 unable to supply any, and they died in these places ; but in 

 their natural situations the evergreens on our hills, in their 

 heavy soils, survived. There is one argument in favor of 

 the Baldwin which has not been noticed here. The fruit 

 will bear more abuse and rough handling than anything that 

 I know of except what we call the pig apples or cider ap- 

 ples, something of that kind, and come out fairly in good 

 condition. You can pick more Baldwins probably and han- 

 dle them so that tliey will pass into the market in good con- 

 dition than any other varieties that I know of. Occasionally 

 we have a Greening tree that bears uniformly good fruit, so 

 that a man will get as many barrels as from a Baldwin. I 

 have a variety of trees, I am sometimes ashamed to say, of 

 grafted fruit on my farm, put in for my amusement in part, 

 and partly with the idea that I may persuade people to use 

 some apples that are better to eat than the Baldwin and the 

 Greening, better to cook, but they do not keep up with me 

 in my idea in that respect, and they say, as Mr. Wood has 

 properly reminded us, these more salable varieties are the 

 ones to be planted for profit, of which there is no doubt ; 

 but if you want varieties to use on your farms you want 

 somewhat of a different selection, many of which would be a 

 failure in trying to raise for the market. 



In regard to this matter of spraying, it would seem to me 

 that Mr. Cruickshanks gave the amount of Paris green 

 rather more than scientific experimenters would warrant in 

 their instructions, and that the amount he describes, one 



