ABOUT THE APPLE. 253 



else. I believe the method of cultivation is to be different in 

 future from what it has been. We are told that the old home- 

 steads are being vacated, and the land running up to wood. I 

 tell you, gentlemen, that the sons who have left those homci- 

 steads have taken up special branches of farming, and are reaping 

 better profits. Tliey are bringing their vegetables to market in 

 the quantities that Mr. Gregory and Capt. Moore have told you 

 about. They have come to the lines of railroad, in closer prox- 

 imity to the markets ; they have not gone out of the world. I 

 think tlie statistics will show in the future that farming is as 

 profitable in Massachusetts as it ever was. 



Mr. J. F. C. Hyde, of Newton. I desire to say a few woids 

 in regard to the culture of the apple. It is a subject of the 

 highest importance to the Massachusetts farmer and fruit 

 grower. I seize this opportunity to say a few words in regard 

 to apples, because the opinion has been entertained for the last 

 three or four years, that our apple crop was to be a failure, and 

 that Massachusetts could not successfully compete with New 

 York and the States further west in producing this crop, which 

 I think is a great error. 



I am aware that in Belmont, and other places about Boston, 

 some of the farmers have done just what our friend Dr. Loring 

 advised them to do — dug up their trees, or cut them down. I 

 do not blame them. They cannot afford to pay a tiiousaud or 

 twelve hundred dollars an acre for land on which to raise ap- 

 ples, unless they raise varieties like the Williams or the Graven- 

 stein, that are carried into market week after week, and sold at 

 high prices. I do not blame them for digging up tlieir Baldwin 

 and other apple-trees, producing winter fruit, because they can 

 use that land for strawberries and for market gardening to very 

 much better advantage. Thart is all right. I have done the 

 same thing myself. I have cut away magnificent trees, of 

 thirty or forty years' growth that had just come into bearing, 

 and I have dug up the roots, and cleared the land of those 

 trees. Why ? Because my land is too valuable to grow apples. 

 But it will not be denied, I think, that Massachusetts produces 

 better apples than are grown — I was about to say — anywhere 

 else ; and so far as my knowledge goes, it is true. If you go 

 to Maine and Northern New Hampshire, you get an apple that 

 keeps too long, and never ripens up to an excellent quality. 



