96 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



the hand of cultivation, as is the case with other kinds, is no 

 stinted affair. And in this country, especially in the softer 

 atmosphere in latitudes just south of ours, it is in great 

 abundance, and, when fully ripe, most delicious. 



The native peach, the Clingstone, and the President, are 

 among the varieties named to the Committee. Undoubtedly 

 quite a number of young trees of different varieties have been 

 lately set out. May the planters of them live to eat the fruit 

 thereof, and that of the successors of those now planted, for 

 very many years to come. 



THE APPLE. 



Whether the different kinds of fruit now known to us had 

 their origin at the time referred to in the first chapter of the 

 Bible, we have probably now no means of ascertaining, but it is 

 not unlikely they are quite similar. " And the Lord God 

 planted a vineyard eastward in Eden ; and there he put the 

 man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the 

 Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and 

 good for food ; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, 

 and the tree of knowledge of good and evil." It is an interest- 

 ing fact that the Lord God made " ornamental " trees to grow 

 — those " pleasant to the sight " — for the fact is an intimation 

 to us, his children, that if He made them, it cannot be beneath 

 our attention to cultivate them ; and we show our appreciation 

 of God's blessings to do so. But it is true also that the trees 

 more important for the use of man were those " good for food." 



Some in their pleasantry intimate that the fruit the eating of 

 which by mother Eve was fatal, was the apple. But we shall 

 never know in this life, at least, what it was, nor is it essential 

 that we should know. But of this we are fully apprised, that 

 our Heavenly Father has given to us this useful esculent to 

 cultivate and to use wisely for food. And we may safely add 

 that there is no species of fruit adapted to the climate in which 

 we live, which is so permanently useful as the apple. It is said 

 that the apple, in all the varieties in which we now cultivate it, 

 is derived from the crab-tree, which is found wild in most parts 

 of the world. If it would not be regarded as too much in the 

 style of speculation, we would suggest that probably the fruit 

 as now found wild has greatly degenerated from its original 



