FRUIT committee's REPORT. 39 



stand our climate are mostly of inferior size if not of quality. There 

 are occasional exceptions, and good specimens of some good English 

 sorts are shown. This was eminently true of two baskets of this fruit 

 raised by P. J. Stone, and placed on our tables. There were but two 

 contributors in all, and only one prize awarded. As new American va- 

 rieties increase we shall raise this fruit more extensively. 



We pass to blackberries, a delicious fruit, but one difficult to grow to 

 perfection. The plant requires a strong soil and high cultivation, to- 

 gether with good protection in the winter. The latter is difficult to man- 

 age, though some lay down the bushes as raspberries or half hardy 

 grape vines are laid. If left up the plants are almost sure to winter 

 kill, and the crop is lost. The difficulty of picking the fruit, added to all 

 the other difficulties, have led many persons to abandon its cultivation 

 on an extensive scale. This is to be regretted, as there are perhaps few 

 fruits more healthful than this. In some small gardens it is trained up 

 to a wall or fence like the grape vine, or on the shady side of a green- 

 house, and does remarkalily well. A few contributors continue to place 

 on our tables, year after year, magnificent specimens of this fine fruit. 

 James N'ugent, B. B. Davis and H. Yandine were the only contributors 

 the past season. The gentleman first named seems to have had remark- 

 able success with the blackberry through a series of years. Our hope is 

 that this fruit may be grown in spite of all the obstacles that seem to lie 

 in the wa3^ 



"We have little to report concerning jjlums, for this fruit has become 

 very scarce on our tables of late years, though very plentiful in former 

 times. Our friend Yandine always has a few specimens to exhibit in 

 spite of warts, curculios and everything else. By what leTgerdemain he 

 succeeds in defeating the latter enemy, we cannot tell. We have fewer 

 regrets at parting with this fruit than with almost any other that could 

 be named. The principal contributors were H. Yandine, B. B. Davis, 

 J. B. Loomis and Mrs. T. W. Ward, who showed some very fine speci- 

 mens. 



We are sorry to say there were no out-door peaches the past season in 

 this region. Those grown in-doors and exhibited by C. S. Holbrook, 

 Mrs. Ward, H. H. Hannewell, George Lincoln, Jr., John Falconer and* 

 others, were very fine. The variable weather of last winter destroyed 

 the fruit-buds, though it did not materially injure the trees. This is fre- 

 quently the case and should not discourage us at all, for if we can have 

 healthy trees free from that pest, the yellows, we can be content to raise 

 a crop even two years in three, or every second year. Among all the 

 fruits raised in this latitude none is more delicious than this. We know 

 that in our boyhood days immense crops of this fruit were raised, and 

 with less trouble than pears are new, and why may we not expect the 

 same results again if we will but plant trees. Some say that because 



