PROFITS OF FRUIT CULTURE. 15 



of Mendon, Monroe county, N. Y., sold in 1845, four hun- 

 dred and forty dollars worth of Roxbury Russet and Nor- 

 thern Spy apples from one acre of orchard. 



James Laws, of Philadelphia, sold three hundred dollars 

 worth of Isabella and Catawba grapes, the fourth year from 

 planting, from three-eighths of an acre, or at the rate of eight 

 hundred dollars per acre. 



Hugh Hatch, of Camden, N. J., obtained from four trees 

 of the Tewksbury Blush, one hundred and forty bushels of 

 apples, or thirty-five from each tree ; of these ninety baskets 

 (of about three pecks each) sold late in the following spring 

 for one dollar per basket. 



Examples almost beyond number may be given where sin- 

 gle trees have yielded from five to ten dollars a year in fruit, 

 and many instances where twenty or thirty dollars have been 

 obtained. An acre of such would be equal to any of the 

 preceding instances. If one tree of the Rhode Island Green- 

 ing will afford forty bushels of fruit, at a quarter of a dollar 

 per bushel, which has often occurred, forty such trees on an 

 acre would yield a crop worth four hundred dollars. But 

 taking but one quarter of this amount as a low average for 

 all seasons and with imperfect cultivation, one hundred dol- 

 lars would still be equal to the interest on fifteen hundred 

 per acre. Now, this estimate is based upon the price of 

 good winter apples for the past thirty years, in our most pro- 

 ductive districts ; let a similar calculation be made with 

 fruits rarer and of a more delicious character. Apricots, and 

 the finer varieties of the plum, are often sold for three to six 

 dollars per bushel ; the best early peaches from one to three 

 dollars ; and pears, from hardy and productive trees, for an 

 equal amount. Of the three former kinds, t\vo to five bushels 

 per tree, with good management, is a frequent crop ; and 

 on large pear trees five times this quantity. An acquain- 

 tance received eight dollars for a crop grown on two fine 

 young cherry trees, and twenty-four dollars from four }~oung 

 peach trees, of only six years growth from the bud. In 

 western New- York, single trees of the Doyenne or Virgalieu 

 pear have often afforded a return of twenty dollars or more, 

 after being sent hundreds of miles to market. An acre of 

 such trees, well managed, would far exceed in profits a fine 

 hundred-acre farm. 



