No. 4.] FRUIT GROWING. 79 



Mr. Hale. Sulphate liy far, but I would prefer ashes to 

 anything. 



Professor Roberts. Why? 



Mr. Hale. Because wherever we have used ashes we 

 have had the best-colored and the best-flavored fruits. I 

 prefer to apply potash in that way simply because the 

 trees say so. I do not know anything about it except from 

 what they tell me. Cotton-hull ashes make an excellent 

 fertilizer for peach trees. 



Mr. L. S. Richards (of Marshfield). I notice that Mr. 

 Hale has not said much about peaches, with wdiicli he 

 has had great success, but he has said considerable about 

 apples. I do not know how it is in Worcester County, but 

 I know very well that in Plymouth County there is a great 

 deal said against raising apples, and few farmers seem 

 to want to go into that business. They have not made 

 it a success. But on the old Daniel Webster farm in 

 Marshfield there is an apple orchard of some three 

 hundred and forty trees that were planted by Daniel 

 Webster, and those trees are every one of them Baldwins. 

 They bear every year. I went over the orchard some time 

 asro to make an estimate, and I thought that those three 

 hundred and forty trees would yield about nine hundred 

 barrels. I have not been there since the fruit w^as picked, 

 and do not know how it turned out. There are a1)out a 

 hundred head of cattle on the farm, and every night they 

 go into this apple orchard and eat up all the apples upon the 

 ground. It is a rare thins; to find a codlino" moth in the 

 orchard, and the apples do not show any signs of it. It 

 seems to me that this proves that putting cows into an 

 orchard where they can eat up the apples that fall and also 

 manure the land is of advantage to the crop. 



I believe in apple raising. I have started an apple 

 orchard which is just commencing to bear. I have great 

 faith that w^ith proper manuring and cultivation that or- 

 chard wdll pay w^ell. I know that Dr. Fisher has been very 

 successful in raising apples, getting some three or four 

 dollars a barrel. I would like to hear a little more about 

 peaches from Mr. Hale. I know in our county, in the 



