TRUST IN PROYIDENCE. 123 



and destroyed the orchards, travelling north and following the 

 seacoast at the rate of about twenty-five miles a year, until it 

 got up into Massachusetts, and destroyed nearly all our trees. 

 In Delaware, the peach-trees are now bearing good crops, and 

 they are raising peaches as well as they did twenty-five years 

 ago. I believe that peaches are going to be raised here as they 

 used to be. Last year I planted three hundred and fifty trees, 

 selecting what I thought to be the best soil — that is, a high, 

 dry and light soil. The trees I planted were one year old from 

 the bud, with the side branches all topped oif. Those trees are 

 now eight feet high, and almost every one of them bore peaches 

 this year, and they are looking finely now. I am willing to put 

 my trust in Providence, after doing what I can. I am not like 

 the old gentleman down in Rhode Island, who got discouraged 

 in consequence of the failure of his crops, and complained to 

 his clergyman that he couldn't raise anything. " Put your 

 trust in Providence," said the minister. Said he : " I have 

 tried that market a long time, and I would ten times rather 

 have Boston." Now, while I will put my trust in Providence, 

 I can tell you Providence is not going to do anything for you 

 unless you do something for yourselves. You have got to take 

 care of your trees — do what is right by them — and then put 

 your trust in Providence, and you will raise your fruit yet. 



Now in regard to grapes. I have no difficulty in raising 

 grapes. Two years ago last spring I planted seven hundred 

 grape-vines, and this year I have taken two tons of grapes off 

 those vines, for which I got about $500, and had the money in 

 my pocket. That does not look as though we could not raise 

 grapes in Eastern Massachusetts. I have sold some eight tons 

 of grapes the present year. I have some four acres of vines, 

 and those vines have been growing without any drain on the 

 rest of the farm for manure. There is another thing. Those 

 vines were planted on an old worn-out rye field, without a par- 

 ticle of manure for some five years, except that it was planted 

 two years with squashes and melons, manured in the hills, eight 

 feet apart. There was no other application of manure, of any 

 kind, except what I will tell you now. The vines were planted 

 ten feet one way and seven feet the other, with rows of straw- 

 berries planted between ; and those rows of strawberries were 

 manured with the ashes of some old stumps taken from the 



