252 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



fruits, the apple. As bread is the standard among articles of 

 diet, so the apple is the standard among fruits. Other fruits are 

 good in their season, but their season is comparatively short. 

 The apple lasts through the year, the Roxbury Russet often lin- 

 gering with us till the early harvest puts on the yellow tinge of 

 maturity. True, for the past four years the apple crop in New 

 England has partly failed ; but this failure is the consequence 

 of causes which are temporary, and we doubt not that the 

 promise that " seed-time and harvest shall continue to the end 

 of the world," is as applicable to fruits as to grains. Without 

 stopping to discuss the causes of failure, we may say, in passing, 

 that the preponderance of testimony of the keenest observers 

 favors the belief that the severe droughts of 1864-5-6 so robbed 

 the apple-tree of its juices that it failed to perfect the fruit ; 

 and so much was the constitutional vigor of the trees affected by 

 these successive dry seasons, that the wet summer of 1867 found 

 them too feeble to bring forth much fruit, or even to blossom 

 freely, though the liealth of the trees improved greatly under its 

 moist skies. We make no pretensions to the ken of prophets, but 

 we confidently expect another year will witness a bountiful crop 

 of apples. The loss to the orchardist during these barren years 

 has, however, not been so great as might be supposed. With 

 apples at five and six dollars per barrel, and cider at eight and 

 ten dollars, the producer has little cause for complaint, though 

 he harvests only half a crop. Tlie little, knotty, refuse apples 

 commanded a higher price for the manufacture of cider the past 

 autumn than was paid for good dessert fruit in the years of plenty. 



OLD ORCHARDS. 



The first point to which we wish to call attention is the reno- 

 vation of the old orchards, planted by our fathers, some thirty, 

 some sixty and some an hundred years since. Such orchards 

 may be seen all through New England, with ugly, dead branches 

 projecting out here and there, with trunks moss-bound and often 

 rotten at the core, apparently cumberers of the ground, and 

 certainly a deformity to the landscape. The question is, Shall 

 we dig about and dung them or cut them down ? Tliis question 

 does not admit an answer of universal application. Though we 

 cannot put an old head on young shoulders, we may put a new 

 head on an old apple-tree ; but whether it will pay or not 



