96 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



natural obstacles, and she still maintains her high rank in this 

 department of culture. But while we make these acknowledg- 

 ments, we rejoice in the fact that no country, on the whole, is 

 more favorable for fruit culture than our own. The fame of 

 our apples in European markets is proverbial, and the day is not 

 distant when with our California and the "Western fruits, we 

 shall, in addition to the enormous consumption at home, furnish 

 large supplies not only to Europe, but to China and Japan, of 

 the finest apples and pears in the world. 



Formerly the cultivation of the finer fruits was confined to 

 the gardens of the opulent, but the multiplied facilities for 

 intercourse, and the emulation excited by exhibitions and con- 

 ventions, has awakened an enterprise from the Lakes to the 

 Gulf, from Alaska to Arizona. On both sides of the Rocky 

 Mountains, orchards, gardens and vineyards are planted on 

 the most extensive scale, and no sooner does the hardy pioneer 

 open the way for the emigrant than these spring up as by 

 magic, and the cry comes from one end of our land to the other. 

 How shall we produce the most valuable fruits ? What are the 

 best methods of cultivation ? What the most approved system 

 for ripening and preserving our fruits ? To gather up the les- 

 sons of the past, and to answer these inquiries, with especial 

 reference to our own instruction, will be the object of my 

 remarks. 



One of the prevailing errors of the past has been that fruit, 

 like forest trees, would take care of themselves ; and it is this 

 neglect which has entailed on us so many old, unproductive 

 trees. 



Most of the old orchards of New England have been planted 

 without sufficient regard to location and proper preparation of 

 the soil. Many of them are in grass, and the exhaustive process 

 of gathering grass and apples from the same field, has, in a 

 measure, depleted both. There is no such thing as inexhaust- 

 ible fertility. Even the fertile soils of California, rivalling in 

 the size, beauty and productiveness of her fruits those of any 

 other part of the globe, will, in time, yield to the inexorable 

 demand for restoration of the fertilizing ingredients which they 

 are now so triumphan'tly bearing off in these beautiful produc- 

 tions of Pomona. 



