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ev^ery blemish — but we were happily disappointed in finding so 

 many and so good, and are free to say that in our opinion this 

 exhibition of apfslcs in old Essex County would do credit to any 

 county or even state society in the country ; and we note this 

 fact with all the more pleasure, because the apple has of late 

 years received so much abuse among us, and the planting and 

 care of apple trees been ridiculed by those even who would be 

 our teachers. 



'Even the subject of the "permanent decline of the apple or- 

 chards of New England" has been suggested by the highest au- 

 thority in our land, and it becomes us all (all at least who intend 

 to raise our own apples and follow it as a profitable business) to 

 look into these things and see if they are really so. 



Our own opinion is simply this ; that there is a "permanent 

 decline" in many and most of the apple orchards in this part of 

 New England, and that it arises from sheer neglect or an un- 

 due zeal in the wrong direction. Wlio that has travelled through 

 any of the towns in this county, during the last summer, has not 

 noticed with sadness and humiliation the effects of the tent cat- 

 erpillar .'' or seen the trees "burnt as with fire" by the persistent 

 canker worm, tlius marring the beauty of our otherwise beautiful 

 scenery ? can trees in such a condition be reasonably expected 

 to bear regular crops of gttod marketable fruit .'' or if left wholly 

 to the ravages of these and other insects for five, ten or fifteen 

 years, is it a wonder that many of our orchards should show 

 symptoms of a "permanent decline .''" 



We notice in the Transactions of the Mass. Horticultural So- 

 ciety for 1874 that the subject of "Legislative enactments to 

 prevent the multiplication of injurious insects in neglected or- 

 chards" was fully discussed, and a bill to that effect strongly 

 urged by some of the members. In fact such a bill was present- 

 ed some si\' years ago to the Agricultural Committee of the 

 H 



