126 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



sometimes live along and bear a few peaches, but you will find 

 that they are brittle, a little touch will snap them, and you will 

 observe that the heart is all dead ; there is just a tliin skin 

 round the surface — the rest appears to be dead. I think that 

 the bulk of the peach trees in this city are in that condition. 



Now, peach trees fruited pretty well last year — what there 

 were of them — in the vicinity of Lowell, and in other localities. 

 The trees bore pretty well, produced good specimens of fruit, 

 which brought a good price. I have some neighbors and 

 acquaintances in the town of Tyngsborough, who had an excel- 

 lent crop and obtained a very high price for them. Other 

 neighbors in Pelham and Hudson were in the like condition. 

 The demand for peach trees last spring was considerable, and 

 many wanted to plant who could not obtain them. If the fruit- 

 buds are not winter killed the present winter, but come out all 

 bright next spring, the demand for trees will be great — you 

 may rest assured of that. I have noticed this for twenty years 

 — that if the peach crop is a failure, the next year there will be 

 little demand for trees, and if there is a good bearing year, 

 there will be a great demand the next season. It is so in a 

 measure, with regard to the apple, although that is not so 

 fluctuating. I find it takes but little to discourage us with 

 regard to any enterprise. It is just so with the grape. A 

 nurseryman came to my nursery last fall, who did not have so 

 many grape-vines as he wanted, and told me one of his neigh- 

 bors was going to set out some, and he wanted 500 for him, 

 and thought he should want 500 for retailing. I showed him 

 round, and told him, " There are three thousand Concords, two 

 years old, and you may have them thus and so." He told me 

 to write him when we got ready to lift them, in October, and I 

 did so. In a day or two, I got a reply, saying that grapes were 

 so bad, that the man had abandoned his plan entirely, and was 

 not going to have any. It is remarkable that such things do 

 discourage men. I have not lost my crop of grapes for ten 

 years. No other crop has done so well ; no other crop is so 

 sure, iinless it is the currant, and that I do not consider of any 

 consequence. This year my grapes were a total failure — not 

 worth gathering. I might have made vinegar, I suppose, but 

 I 'had plenty to do, and I let them rot on the ground. It 

 seems to me folly for persons to get discouraged in relation to 



