48 ESSEX SOCIETY. 



ter Sweet, Seaver's Sweeting, and the Aunt Hannah, now 

 command nearly double the price of the above excellent sort. 

 We should cultivate apples which ripen in succession through- 

 out the season ; and should avoid raising many of those that 

 are in season at the time of our fine pears and peaches. We 

 believe that apples are to become a more staple article for 

 exportation, than they ever yet have been in New England. 

 Our soil and climate are, we apprehend, better adapted for the 

 permanent cultivation of this fruit, than the deep alluvial 

 soils of the South and West. We find that there they are 

 more subject to what has been denominated frozen sap blight 

 and canker, which we think may be attributable to their deep 

 soils, the roots running below the action of the sun and air, so 

 necessary for the health and longevity of trees. We find here, 

 on the contrary, apple trees in a good healthy and bearing 

 state, that are half a century and more old. 



In New England we have a more shallow soil ; hence trees 

 grow slower, the wood ripening better than upon rich, deep 

 soils, where they are forced to grow later, the wood being suc- 

 culent, the leaves remaining long upon the trees, rendering 

 them liable to be overtaken by the winter, before the sap is 

 sufficiently elaborated to stand a severe freezing. Hence, we 

 believe that as Massachusetts can never be made a grazing or 

 grain growing region, compared at all with the South and 

 West, and as the apples here are equal, if not superior, on the 

 whole, to those of any other section, we would recommend to 

 the farmers of Essex county, to cultivate the best keeping 

 varieties of good winter apples, as a source of income vastly 

 more sure of a safe return than that of Indian corn ; for while 

 the Southerner cannot compete with us in the cultivation of 

 the former, neither can we with him in the production of the 

 latter. 



From farther observation on the varieties of apples which, 

 from time to time, we have seen, since we made a former re- 

 port to this society, we would repeat our assertion, that a fruit, 

 (particularly the apple,) originating on a given soil, will 

 generally be superior in that locality or section, than in any 

 other. We have in our mind the Newtown Pippin, Esopus 

 Spitzenberg, Red Doctor, Pennock's Red Winter and Red 

 Gillyflower, fruits which are considered first rate, as well they 



