102 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



amply repaid all the care and labor wliicli have been expended 

 upon them. Tlic committee are rejoiced at the increased 

 interest which has been awakened, within a few years, among 

 our farmers in their orchards. Young and thrifty trees are 

 appearing on every side, and the old native cider apples 

 are giving place to choice eatable and marketable fruit. Tho 

 people of Franklin County are just becoming conscious of what 

 they can do in raising good fruit. We have been and are still 

 behind most other counties of the State, but the increased 

 facilities for reaching market have turned the attention of many 

 in this direction. It is to be hoped that the good work will 

 be carried on, and that many of our hill sides will, ere long, 

 be covered with fruitful orchards. We think that our farmers 

 have no occasion to fear that the market for good winter 

 apples, will be overstocked. The demand is yearly increasing, 

 and we, in Franklin County, are not able, and shall not be for 

 years, to supply the wants of our own neighborhood. Fruit is 

 becoming a more important article of food, and is destined to 

 occupy a far higher place than it now holds, in the supply of 

 the tabic. The time is not far distant when, in every " well 

 regulated family," a bed of strawberries and raspberries will 

 be thought as indispensable as a bed of beets and cabbages 

 now is, and when a dozen barrels of winter apples will be 

 regarded as only a moderate supply for a family. The day for 

 dried apples has passed. We want, and we can have, fair? 

 fresh apples till June, when strawberries come to take their 

 place. 



There are few departments of agriculture which are better 

 calculated to awaken a generous enthusiasm, and a sincere love 

 and respect for the occupation, than the cultivation of fruit 

 trees. It taxes the best powers of a man's mind ; it brings 

 him into near and pleasant contact with many of the most 

 beautiful operations of nature. A thrifty orchard which a man 

 has set with his own hands, whose growth he has watched for 

 years, which he has defended summer and winter, will be to 

 him a source of exquisite pleasure ; it will bind him more 

 closel}^ to the spot which he calls by the sacred name of home. 

 The moral influences which attend the cultivation of fruit trees, 

 and the free use of fruit as an article of food, we conceive to 



