No. 7. 



Profits of Fiuit Culture. 



209 



From the Horticulturist. 

 Profits of Fruit Culture. 



Having seen in a. late number of the Hor 

 ticulturist, an account of a cherry tree that 

 produced ten dollars worth of fruit in one 

 season, permit me to give a chapter of facts 

 on fruits, most of which are within my own 

 personal knowledge. 



C. A. Cable, of Cleveland, has an orchard 

 of an hundred cherry trees, now twenty-two 

 years old. In the year 1845, his crop sold 

 for upwards of one thousand dollars. Mr. 

 C. manages his orchard better than any 

 other person in the Union, so far as my 

 knowledge extends. The trees are planted 

 out twenty-five feet apart, tlie ground kept 

 properly enriched and cultivated, but no 

 crop is put in. 



Elisha Swai7i, of Darby, near Philadel- 

 phia, has the remains of a cherry orchard, 

 numbering seventy trees, mostly of the 

 Mayduke variety. In the height of the 

 season, his sales amount to upwards of $80 

 per day. Mr. S., to ensure a good crop 

 every season, digs in a horse-cart load of 

 manure to each tree in autumn. 



Hill Pennell, of Darby, has twenty apple 

 trees, of the early Redstreak and Early 

 Queen varieties, that stand on half an acre 

 of ground. In 1846 these trees produced 

 three hundred bushels of fruit, that sold in 

 Philadelphia market for 75 cents per bushel, 

 or .S225 for the crop. 



Mr. Pennell has a grape vine of the Rac- 

 coon [Fox grape] variety, that covers the 

 tops of fourteen apple trees. It has never 

 been pruned, but produces 75 bushels of 

 grapes yearly, that sell for $1 per bushel. 

 The apple trees produce good crops of fruit, 

 and under the trees is produced a crop of 

 grass; thus making three crops from one 

 lot of ground. 



James Laws, of Philadelphia, has a Wash- 

 ington plum tree, that produces six bushels 

 of fruit yearly, that would sell in market for 

 ten dollars per bushel. Five of the above 

 plums weigh a pound. 



Mr. Laws has a small vineyard of Isabella 

 and Catawba grapes, near Chester, sixteen 

 miles below Philadelphia, three-eighths of 

 an acre of which came into bearing in 1845. 

 The sales amounted to three hundred dollars 

 at eight cents per pound, or at the rate of 

 eight hundred dollars per acre from vines 

 only four years old. 



Brinton Darlington, of West Ciiester, 

 Pa., has a Catawba grape vine, that pro- 

 duces ten bushels of grapes yearly. This 

 crop is worth $40 at market price. 



Jacob Steinmelz, of Philadelphia, has a 

 Blue Gage plum tree, that produces ten. 



bushels of fruit in a season, worth in mar- 

 ket, i30. 



My friend, Ellwcod Harvey, Chaddsford, 

 Pa., the present season, gathered thirteen 

 quarts of gooseberries from one plant. 



A gardener near Philadelphia, has two 

 rows of gooseberry plants one hundred and 

 fifty feet long. One afternoon he gathered 

 with his own hands, six bushels of fruit, and 

 the next morning sold them in Philadelphia 

 market for $24. 



A gentleman of Philadelphia having two 

 apricot trees that produced more fruit than 

 his family could consume, concluded to send 

 the balance to market, and expend the mo- 

 ney it would bring in purchasing wood for 

 the poor. The amount thus sold for the 

 benefit of the poor was $40. 



Judge Line, of Carlisle, Pa., has had two 

 Syrian apricot trees that have produced five 

 bushels to each tree in a season. In the 

 Philadelphia market, they would have com- 

 manded $120, in the New York market, 

 $140. 



Hugh Hatch, of Camden, N. J., has four 

 Tewksbury Winter Blush apple trees, that 

 in 1846 produced one hundred and forty 

 market baskets of apples. Without any 

 extra care, ninety baskets of these were on 

 hand late in the spring of 1847, when they 

 readily sold at $1 per basket. 



The following facts relative to fruit grow- 

 ing near the North river, I have never seen 

 published. Three years ago, Mr. Charles 

 Downing, of Newburgh, N. Y., informed me 

 that a fruit grower of his acquaintance in 

 Fishkill Landing, N. Y., had gathered fifteen 

 barrels of Lady apples from one tree, and 

 sold them in New York for $45. The same 

 gentleman you speak of, in your Fruits and 

 Fruit Trees of America, as having sent to 

 New York sixteen hundred bushels of plums 

 in one season, has sent to New York apricots 

 and received $14 per bushel for them. The 

 above gentleman has often said that his plum 

 trees, which are set out about the buildings, 

 and take up but little room, pay him more 

 profit than the whole of his valuable farm of 

 two hundred acres. Another fruit grower 

 in your neighbourhood, has sent four hun- 

 dred bushels of Frost Gage plums to market 

 in one season, and received $1200 for them. 

 Yet with all these facts before us, there 

 is no full supply of any kind of fruit in the 

 Philadelphia market, except peaches. Many 

 farmers and gardeners neglect setting out 

 fruit trees from a natural negligence; others 

 dislike to pay fifty cents for a fine plum tree; 

 others again are afraid that every body will 

 go to fruit growing, and bring down the price 

 to almost nothing. But we would ask, if 

 there is any more danger of everybody com- 



