APPLES AND PEACHES. 247 



tliis will cause an increased demand for fruit for years to come, 

 which I trust will be supplied to a large, extent by our own 

 cultivators. 



At the last public meeting of the State Board of Agriculture, 

 held at Pittsfield, it was seriously urged by the most prominent 

 agricultural lecturer in New England, that we must give up the 

 growing of the apple ; that from the change of climate, the 

 ravages of insects, the exhaustion of our soils, apples could not 

 be grown here in Massachusetts, except perhaps by skilful horti- 

 culturists, and that in his lectures to farmers in Worcester 

 County he had advised them to cut down their orchards. 



Now let us examine the results the present year and see if 

 the climate has changed, the soil become exhausted and all the 

 apples destroyed by insects. What are the facts ? Why that we 

 have gathered an enormous crop of apples the present year ; and 

 if the gentleman's propositions were correct, we have gathered 

 them with an unsuitable climate, and from an exhausted soil, 

 and in spite of the ravages of insects. 



Now if this is correct, is there anything hereafter impossible 

 in fruit culture ? And I think I can say that almost every apple- 

 tree with a particle of life in it has been loaded with fruit, no 

 matter where situated, in the garden of the horticulturist, the 

 orchard, pasture or brush lot of the farmer. Science or horti- 

 cultural skill did not have anything to do with it. 



And to me it does not look as though the climate and soil of 

 Massachusetts, one of the homes of this indispensable fruit, the 

 soil which has produced .those world-renowned varieties, the 

 Roxbury Russet, Baldwin, Porter, Williams, Hubbardston 

 Nonsuch and many others, had entirely run out and lost its 

 productiveness. 



A few years ago there were doubts about growing even the 

 most hardy varieties of grapes in Massachusetts'. Now there is 

 none w^iatever, and from my own experience I can say that it 

 does not require anything more than ordinary skill to succeed. 

 Select a warm soil, tolerably free from frost, and plant good 

 vines of hardy and early varieties, and with any decent treat- 

 ment they will produce a crop of fruit. It has been said by 

 eminent horticulturists, that we must give up growing the 

 peach, and the principal, if not only reason assigned for its 

 failure, was the destruction of the forests which have so changed 



