10 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895. 



ing and the culture of small-fruits, Worcester County could 

 beat the world in this industry. 



We do raise fine apples. No finer apples were ever seen 

 anywhere in size, in color, in flavor, and in all those points 

 approaching perfection, than were exhibited in our Hall during 

 the past Autumn ; but for every plate thus exhibited how many 

 plates there were remaining of imperfect, worm-eaten and 

 worthless fruit, is a question of serious consequence, to be 

 answered only by conjecture. If I were to hazard a guess, the 

 rates would be not less than three to one. Good judges have 

 placed it as high as eighty per cent. 



The trouble is, that our farmers and orchardists do not make 

 apple culture a serious business. Instead of making of it a real 

 business, they make it subordinate and auxiliary to something 

 else, and very much auxiliary at that. And if they persist in 

 going forward in this indifferent fashion, in planting their trees 

 carelessly and caring for them still more carelessly, leaving them 

 to fare as best they may in soil poorly prepared and poorly 

 fertilized, unpruned, untouched by wash or spray, a prey to 

 the borer, the codlin moth, the canker worm and caterpillar, 

 and when the fruit is gathered, fill the barrel with good, bad 

 and indifferent all together, and in this condition palm them of 

 upon an unsuspecting public, what right have they then to 

 complain that there is no money in apples? "Do men gather 

 grapes of thorns or figs from thistles ? " 



Ex-President Hadwen has well said, that in the line of fruits, 

 " the apple is the richest gift the Almighty has vouchsafed to 

 man." It is in more universal use than any other fruit. It can 

 be used in its natural state during a longer period of the year 

 than any other. Its medicinal and sanitary qualities are unsur- 

 passed. And the demand for good apples is constantly on the 

 increase. The foreign market is year by year asking for a 

 greater supply. One grower in Middlesex County has shipped 

 to England the past season, from his own orchard, over two 

 thousand l)arrels. But for poor, imperfect, indifferent fruit 

 there is no demand, and no market at home or abroad, and never 

 will be. 



