No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING. 185 



Allusion has been made to me as a nurseryman. Perhaps 

 twenty-five years of my life have been spent among trees. 

 It is very natural for a nurseryman to have a large variety of 

 fruits and flowers and shrubs and different lines of ornamen- 

 tation to carry along his work .successfully. In the line of 

 ornamentation I will admit that it is desirable for us to have 

 a wide range, adapted to different purposes, for different 

 effects, for different soils and different situations, climatic 

 influences and prevailing winds ; l)ut when you come down 

 to the matter of fruit culture, there is where the nurserymen 

 and tree peddlers have made a great mistake, and have done 

 injury to the farmers of New England. Why, you know 

 how they do. A man comes to your door with a beautifully 

 colored plate of some variety of fruit that he only has the 

 secret of — it may be a plum which grows upon a tree that 

 will withstand the black knot, aii.d the plum is of such fine 

 texture or is so firm that the curculio will not sting it, and so 

 he sells you that tree for a dollar or two or three dollars, 

 and you set out your orchard expecting those results to 

 come from it. Do you know, my friends, the curculio is a 

 pretty good judge of good fruit, and he won't touch those 

 fruits ; they are so poor that the curculio won't strike it. 

 Such trees certainly will ncAcr meet the approval of the 

 horticulturist. That is only an illustration. It is the same 

 with peaches, grapes, pears and apples. 



I think the State Board of Agriculture is doino- a o^reat 



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service to the farmers in this matter of judging by the scale 

 of points. I will touch the line of fruits. It was my privi- 

 lege to be associated with Mr. Wood in arranging the scale 

 of points for fruits and of making some suggestions in regard 

 to their exhibition, and the State Board has done you a great 

 good in confining you to a few specific varieties. Five have 

 been named, and our Worcester society sustains the same 

 varieties and thinks that is a sufficiency. Think of the 

 waste of my friend Gold with his ninety-five other varieties, 

 for only the pleasure that he gets out of them ! So I say, 

 let this one lesson go out from this meeting of the State 

 Board in the matter of the cultivation of fruit : Have as 

 few varieties as possible, and put your whole effort into that 

 direction and make a success of it. 



