60 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



FRUIT GROWING IN MASSACHUSETTS.* 



BY J. H. HALE, SOUTH GLASTONBURY, CONN. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentle3ien : — I regret, in 

 the first place, to see so few ladies here, because wherever I 

 find very successful fruit culture there I find the ladies 

 thoroughly interested in it. I say to you, brother farmers, 

 that you ought not to leave your wives, daughters and " best 

 o:irls" at home. You ought never to come to a convention 

 of this kind without the ladies. 



The subject which has been assigned to me this afternoon, 

 " Fruit Culture in Massachusetts," is such a broad one that 

 it would really take up the whole of the rest of this session 

 to just begin to talk about it, and if I did not see on the pro- 

 gram the names of several distinguished speakers who are to 

 address you this evening, to-morrow and Thursday, I should 

 just start in talking and keep it up just as long as you could 

 stand it. But that seems to be impossible, and it is also 

 impossible for me in a portion of one afternoon to go into 

 the discussion of special methods of fruit culture, covering 

 all the varieties of fruit that may be grown in Massachusetts 

 and New England. So I propose to say but very little in 

 that line, but to talk on the general subject of fruit culture, 

 from a business stand-point. 



My own personal Avork and some public work in connection 

 with withering statistics of horticulture for the eleventh census 

 of the United States has given me during the past few years 

 an insight into the great and growing horticultural industries 

 of this country. Horticulture is growing in some sections 

 of the United States, South and West and on the Pacific 

 coast, into a great commercial l)usiness, — just as much of a 

 business as that of your manufactures here in Massachusetts ; 

 and in looking at the broad acres that have been devoted to 

 * Stenographic Report by J. M. W. Yerrinton. 



