ORCHARDS AND VINEYARDS. 125 



have, an apple to eat every day in the year, and the modern 

 mode of excluding air by canning, enables us to be furnished 

 with all manner of fruits in fresh condition at all seasons. We 

 call no farm perfect without its apple and pear orchards. The 

 apple of late years has been a little coquettish in its habits, and 

 some may have been discouraged from cultivating this most pro- 

 ductive and most useful of the fruits. Let such remember that 

 even in our most unproductive seasons, more and better apples 

 are raised in the northern and western sections of our country 

 than in any other part of the world. Our soil and climate as a 

 whole are exceedingly well adapted to this fruit, and nowhere 

 does it find a more congenial home. Others have feared that, 

 by the great increase of nurseries, and multiplication of orchards, 

 the market for apples would be overstocked. We need only to 

 remind these fearful ones that the price of apples has steadily 

 risen in our country. The increase in demand has more than 

 kept pace with the increase of orchards, so that the price of re- 

 fuse apples, fit only to be made into cider, is now more than our 

 fathers could obtain for choice winter fruits. They thought 

 themselves fortunate if they could obtain one dollar per barrel for 

 picked, grafted apples. We are not content unless we realize four 

 or five times this amount. Cider, that most healthy of all the 

 vinous beverages, was formerly sold by the barrel for about the 

 same that it now brings by the gallon. The foreign demand for 

 apples has also greatly increased. England, with her foggy at- 

 mosphere, intercepting the solar rays, cannot produce the high 

 colored and high flavored fruit peculiar to our country, and will 

 most gladly purchase all our surplus production. But so far, 

 we have had little surplus, for comparatively few, even in our 

 favored land can say, they have all the fruit they desire. Let 

 no one then be discouraged by an occasional unfruitful season, 

 or by fear of an overstocked market, from planting apple 

 orchards. We hope soon to see some remedy devised against 

 the attacks of the curculio and other insects, which now are the 

 pests of our orchards, and if no other more profitable disposi- 

 tion can be made of our apples, our cattle and swine will con- 

 sume all we can raise. 



While apples of late years have become a rather uncertain 

 cropj the vigor of pear-trees has increased, and their variety and 



