ORCHARDS. 61 



select fruit for his own use, may be indulged in some latitude in 

 the selection of a larger number of kinds, of admitted excel- 

 lence, even at the risk that some of those kinds may be found, 

 upon trial, not to succeed well in the particular locality. 



Charles Mason. 

 FiTCiiBURG, September 27, 1865. 



PLYMOUTH. 



From the Report of the Supervisor. 

 Statement of P. Lincoln Gushing, of Middleborourjh. 



The pear trees entered for the society's premium in 1865 

 number three hundred and sixty-five. They are mostly of the 

 well known * standard varieties. The rest are selections from 

 those that have proved valuable in other localities, and a few 

 that are comparatively new have been introduced to test their 

 adaptation to this vicinity. Nearly all were planted in the 

 spring of 1859 — some before, a smaller number since. Nine- 

 tenths, at least, are imported trees, from two to six years of age 

 at the time of planting, the older ones having been purchased at 

 nurseries, and the two year olds, which were by far the greater 

 part, as they came in the cases from France. A few were 

 obtained of a travelling agent, but as only one in ten proved 

 true to name, and did not come up to the standard of excellence 

 promised, little confidence has since been felt in that mode of 

 purchase. One-third are on the pear, and two-thirds on the 

 quince stock. They are set in rows twelve feet apart ; those of 

 the quinces six feet apart in the rows, and the standards three 

 times that distance, with dwarfs between. The soil is a loam, 

 from which some stone, large and small, have been removed, and 

 is underlaid by a gravelly clay at the depth of from two to 

 three feet below the surface. A general slope towards the south- 

 west does not allow surplus water to remain where it falls, and 

 I have noticed that the lower side of the garden is more moist 

 than the upper, especially in the spring. 



When I came into possession of the place where I reside, I 

 found some forty pear trees which had been set two years pre- 

 viously. A few had grown a little ; the rest liad not made an 

 inch of wood, and were in a dying condition. It would have 

 been a matter of economy to have removed them from the ■ 



