nth February, A. D. 1897. 



ESSAY 



BY 



ELIJAH W. WOOD, West Newton. 

 Theme : — Neio Fruits, and New Methods in Fruit Culture. 



The fruit crop the past season has been exceptional and unusually 

 irregular. There was no material injury to fruit-bearing plants or 

 trees during the winter 1895-96, except to the peach trees, on which 

 the fruit buds were almost entirely killed throughout New England. 

 Later in the season the strawberry, through some unfavorable influ- 

 ence, while the vines were apparently healthy and vigorous, did not in 

 many localities produce the usual quantity of fruit. 



The apple crop was exceptionably abundant. The over-supply for 

 the home market has caused the shipment of an amount far in excess 

 of any previous year to foreign countries ; with the result that the 

 large quantity sent, with the limited and imperfect facilities for 

 transportation delivering the fruit in a more or less damaged condi- 

 tion, the returns have as a rule been unsatisfactory and have not com- 

 pared favorably with prices realized in the home market, where the 

 prices as a whole have been lower than for several years, though A 

 No. 1 fruit has sold readily and brought fair prices. We have the 

 report from one grower in the western part of the State, who gives 

 his orchard special care by spraying and thinning the fruit, that he 

 has disposed of his whole crop of thirteen hundred barrels at an 

 average of one dollar and seventy cents per barrel. 



The lesson taught the apple-grower by the past season's experience 

 would seem to be — 1st, the necessity of better care of the orchard by 

 spraying to reduce the injury by insect pests and prevent the apple 

 scab ; 2d, thinning the fruit, thus securing a larger and more uniform 

 size and causing the trees to produce a partial crop on tlie alternate or 

 off-bearing year; 3d, allowing the trees to have the benefit of all the 



