294 Farmers' Miscellany. [Oct., 



ornamented with the Michigan rose, would form' one of the most 

 perfect gardenesque landscapes possible at the season of flow- 

 ering. 



FRUITS OF ERIE COUNTY. 



BY LEWIS FALKE. 



This county lies partly upon three of the principal groups, or 

 geological formations that stretch along through Western New 

 York, namely: the north portion is intersected from the Niagara 

 river, east, including Grand Island, by the Onondaga salt groups, 

 a narrow strip of a few miles immediately adjoining this on the 

 south, commencing at the immediate debouchure of Lake Erie 

 into the Niagara, about four miles wide, and widening in its pro- 

 gess east, to six or eight miles at the county line, is of the On- 

 ondaga limestone formation, while all that portion lying south of 

 Buffalo belongs to the Marcellus shale. 



This county, too, is bordered on the w^est by Lake Erie, and 

 the Niagara river its outlet; whose salubrious waters temper the 

 atmosphere, thus retarding the early influences of a precocious 

 spring upon the opening of our fruit buds, till the season is suffi- 

 ciently advanced for their vigorous growth; and even then, pro- 

 tecting them by its moistened influences from the frosts that often 

 are so fatal a few miles in the interior; and in the autumn so 

 modifying the low temperature and sudden frosts, as to give the 

 fullest maturity to all the fruits which flourish in this climate. 



Fruit trees flourish perhaps equally well in nearly every part 

 of the county, with proper cultivation, and the following varieties 

 may be termed as well established: the apple, plum, cherry, pear, 

 quince, peach, apricot, nectarine; not to mention the smaller gar- 

 den fruits, as the gooseberry, the current, the raspberry, the straw- 

 berry; also the melon, and the vine. 



Were I to distinguish, however, on which of the formations all 

 of these fruits flourish in the greatest luxuriance, I should name 

 those located on the loamy soils of the salt group, as first in ex- 



