332 HAMPSHIRE SOCIETY. 



still there has been an importation of foreign trees to supply 

 the demand. But as yet there has been but a bare beginning 

 in the required change. It is too true, that at this time, within 

 the limits of your society, many trees are but mere cumberers 

 of the ground, producing no fruit, or that which is scarcely 

 worth gathering, and yet these trees occupy as much space, 

 and make as heavy a draft upon the soil as the very best. 

 Good winter apples seldom sell for less than fifty cents a 

 bushel. But poor apples will not sell at all. And in regard 

 to peach trees, but very few produce fruit of fine quality. The 

 best quality of peaches have sold this year, at the rate of two 

 dollars a bushel in this quarter; but who will buy the green, 

 sour, bitter kind, which so often appear? Your committee are 

 fully convinced, that if fruit trees were of the right kind, they 

 would be worth to the owners twice or thrice what they now 

 are, and would cost them scarcely a fraction more. In this 

 report there is no room to speak of the culture of trees, or of 

 soils or locations. But we wish to call the attention of this 

 society to the introduction of dwarf trees into gardens and 

 other grounds. Such trees are not only very profitable, but 

 exceedingly beautiful and ornamental. They have this ad- 

 vantage ; they bear well in three or four years, whereas the 

 orchard tree does not bear much short of ten or twelve years. 



All which is respectfully submitted, 



John San ford. Chairman. 



PREMIUMS. 



Samuel Dunlap, of Sunderland, ^10 for best orchard; The- 

 odore Pasco of Hadley, for best apple orchard, ^8 ; and 

 Elijah Boltwood, of Amherst, for next best, $6. 



Theodore Pasco's Statement. 



My orchard contains eighty-one trees. Some of them are 

 nearly thirty years old, while others are fifteen. Twelve years 

 after they were set, they were grafted six feet from the ground. 

 I have forty trees of Greenings, ten of Nurseries, four of Bald- 

 wins, five of Roxbury Russets, one of Shaker Russets, three 

 of Gillyflowers, one of Seek-no-further, two early Greenings, 

 two Winter Sweets, besides several choice varieties of early 



