* NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Feb. 



there are not numerous holders of lands in Illinois, 

 Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Kansas. 



The years of the greatest speculation in western 

 lands have been 1835, in which 12,566,000 acres 

 were sold ; 1 836, in which the sales were 20,074,870 

 acres. In 1855 the land sales again rose to 1 2,000,- 

 000 acres, and in 1856 to 40,000,000 acres. 



After the great speculations of 1836, the sales 

 fell off in 1837 to 5,601,103 acres, in 1838 to 3,- 

 416,907 acres, and in 1841 they sank as low as 

 1,164,796 acres. 



The average sale of lands from 1832 to 1852, 

 inclusive, was 4,920,000 acres per annum, or one- 

 Jifth only of what was marketed in the last fiscal 

 years. With the issue of land warrants, under the 

 acts of 1852 and 1854, the speculations again re- 

 commenced, and have now reached the present un- 

 paralleled amount. — Traveller. 



POMOLOGICAL ADDEESS. 



Amidst the rapid strides of the arts and sciences 

 in our time, it is gratifying to know that Pomology 

 has not been stationary. Few subjects exhibit so 

 remarkably the progress^of civilization and improve- 

 ment as the cultivation of fruit. It is now only 

 about a quarter of century since the establishment 

 of the oldest horticultural society in America. — 

 Then, these associations were few and feeble ; now 

 they are numerous and influential, extending from 

 the British Provinces to the Gulf of Mexico, and 

 from ocean to ocean, — all working together in har- 

 mony with each other, and aiding our association, 

 whose field is our national domain. The fruit crop 

 of the country was not deemed worthy of a place 

 in our national statistics; now it exceeds thirty mil- 

 lions of dollars annually, and is rapidly becoming 

 one of the most valuable and indispensable pro- 

 ducts of our Republic. Then the sales of iruit 

 trees were numbered by hundreds, now by hun- 

 dreds of thousands. Then choice fruit was a lux- 

 ury to be found only in the j)alace of the opulent ; 

 now it helps to furnish the table of the humble cot- 

 tager, and comparatively few are the hamlets which 



pagated on suckers taken from' the forest ; now we 

 see millions of young vigorous trees cultivated, sold, 

 and ]}lanted in all parts of the Union, and where 

 twenty years since not a single specimen of the 

 Pyrus was to found. The public no longer ridicule 

 the man Avho plants a tree with the ho])e of gath- 

 ering its fruit with his own hands, or the saving of 

 seeds to improve the quality of his fruits. True, 

 Van Mons was ridiculed all his life, and only ap- 

 preciated by such pioneers as Davy, Poiteau,"Diel 

 and Drapiez. His nurseries were thrice destroyed, 

 as wild, worthless thorn bushes, under the false 

 pretence of "public utility." This was an irrepara- 

 ble loss, for however much his system be discussed 

 and distrusted, it is still true th*at the results of hia 

 experience have been most beneficial to the world. 

 ♦ * ■ # * * * 



By the reports from individual fruit growers, and 

 from associations, it appears that some varieties of 

 the pear succeed equally as well in the extreme 

 south part of our Union as in the north. A gentle- 

 man from Oregon Territory recently informed me 

 that settlers there had already provided themselves 

 with extensive orchards, and from which they gath- 

 er fruits of great size- and excellence. He also 

 makes a similar report in relation to Washington 

 Territory, and instances among others an orchard 

 of one hundred acres, which is now yielding a large 

 annual income to its proprietor. 



» * * * * # 



When we consider the progress of the grape 

 culture in the single State of Ohio, and its great in- 

 crease in other States, amounting now to more 

 than two millions of dollars annually — the immense 

 quantities of peaches and strawberries brought to 

 our markets, the rapid multiplication of the apple, 

 the pear, and other fruits throughout our land, and 

 the millions of trees annually sent out from this 

 vicinity and other parts, it is not easy to calculate 

 the future importance of fruit culture, whether 

 viewed as a means of furnishing luxuries for our 

 table, or articles of domestic and foreign commerce. 



