1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 



245 



quested him to set out an apple tree in each corner! 

 of his garden, and he did it, and she lived to eat 

 the fruit from two of them. He sold his winter 

 apples last year, on the trees, for $300. Apples 

 would pay for raising for stock. Sweet apples are 

 good to feed to horses occasionally. A neighbor 

 had a cow that seemed to fail in her milk, and after 

 being fed half a peck of sweet apples a day, for 

 three days, her milk increased one quarter. For 

 the market he thought the Baldwin variety, the best 

 on the whole. He preferred to have his trees so 

 trimmed as to have five main branches, in order 

 that, whichever way the wind may blow they will 

 be less liable to be split. He had tried setting 

 them out at thirty-five feet apart ; but he believed 

 that twenty-five feet was a sufficiently great distance. 

 It is better to cultivate the trees in this way, in or- 

 der that the greatest amount of fruit may be ob- 

 tained in the shortest time. There is only one 

 man who knows where the first Bald\vin apple tree 

 grew, and Mr. Sheldon hoped some one would as- 

 certain the exact locality, and cause a monument 

 to be erected in honor of LoAMi Baldwin, who 

 raised that tree which has proved so great a bless- 

 ing to the State. Such benefactors ought to be 

 gratefully remembered; and he hoped a monu- 

 ment in honor of the chairman of the meeting 

 would eventually be erected also. 



The chairman stated as an inducement to plant 

 trees, that a gentleman at the age of seventy-five 

 commenced the planting of a nursery, and he lived 

 to be over a hundred years of age, and eat of the 

 fruits of his trees for many years. 



Dr. Fisher, of Fitchburg, had planted over a 

 thousand pear trees within the last two years. He 

 took much pains to prepare the soil, by digging 

 holes five feet in diameter when they were set out, 

 and filling in with rich surface soil. He had not as 

 yet had sufficient experience to enable him to 

 speak of results. 



Mr. W. G. Le\\7S, of Framingham, first set out 

 pear trees twenty years ago, and he had cultivated 

 them on pear stocks. He had four Seckle pear 

 trees, each of which yields $25 worth of pears an- 

 nually. He thought there was no business more 

 profitable for a young man than to cultivate pears. 



Mr. Simon Brown, of Concord, also called at- 

 tention to the profit of raising fruit. A gentleman 

 who had brought up a family, and who had reached 

 nearly seventy years of age, and lost much of his 

 property, had a few acres of land, upon which 

 he set out one hundred apple trees, and now he is 

 made independent by the fruit of liis trees. Mr. 

 Brown urged the cultivation of the smaller fruits, 

 such as the currant, gooseberry, raspberry, &c. 

 There is too httle interest in this matter, and he 

 thought women as much to be blamed as men in 

 regard to it. Mothers ought to insist that their 

 children shall cultivate fruits. He had no doubt 



there would be seen a marked difference, as they 

 go out into the world, between families reared in 

 connection with a good garden and plenty of fruit, 

 and those that have not been so reared. The for- 

 mer will be seen to go in advance of the latter in 

 morals and virtue, and everything that goes to 

 make this a comfortable and pleasant world. There 

 is then a moral as well as physical aspect to this 

 subject. Every one ought to plant a tree ; and 

 now is the time, in the spring of the year, to do 

 this work. Let every one urge the planting of 

 trees, to cultivate and improve the taste and to 

 beautify our homes. 



Mr. Sheldon urged upon the young present to 

 carry out the suggestions of the last speaker, and 

 to cherish the memory of such men as Loami Bald- 

 win. Being about to leave to take the cars for 

 home, the chairman expressed to him his thanks 

 for the honorable mention of his name, and assured 

 him that he would be most happy to join in erect- 

 ing a monument on the site where the original 

 Baldwin apple tree stood ; but he begged that the 

 monument to himself might be postponed a few 

 years. 



Mr. Sheldon. — I hope it may for many. In an- 

 swer to inquiries, Mr. Sheldon said he cultivated 

 the land of his orchard, and trimmed the trees just 

 high enough to allow cattle in plowing to pass un- 

 der the limbs. He did not care how low the limbs 

 grew, were it not for plowing under them. He set 

 his trees about twenty-five feet apart. The trees 

 might not last as long to be highly manured, and 

 to have the groimd plowed ; but there was a quick- 

 er return and greater profits on the whole. It was 

 better to get the money quicker and use it, than to 

 be twenty or thirty years about it. The remarks 

 of Mr. Sheldon were exceedingly valuable, and 

 met with the hearty applause of the audience. 



Mr. "W. J. BucKMiNSTER spoke of the relative 

 value of sweet apples, which he thought excellent 

 for feeding to stock. He condemned the practice 

 of buying fruit trees at auction sales, where gener- 

 ally only refuse trees are sold. Root grafting, too, 

 he opposed. No security could be had for good 

 trees except from thrifty plants, produced from 

 seedlings. 



The relative profit of cultivation of fruit and of 

 grass or grain upon the same land, was then dis- 

 cussed by several gentlemen, Mr. John Brooks, 

 of Princeton, doubting whether the profit in culti- 

 vating fruit, for a long period, would be as great as 

 that of some other crops. He thought the land 

 where trees are cultivated could not be profitably 

 used for the cultivation of other crops at the same 

 time. 



Mr. Brown had made no calculation, but he 

 had been upon Mr. Sheldon's orchards many times 

 and had noticed every year that he had fine crops 

 of com and potatoes and turnips there. He 



