88 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



county. Some branches of agricultural industry have become 

 less profitable than they were years ago. In grain growing, 

 we cannot compete with the West, even in our own home 

 markets. Neither can we in stock raising. Even dairying is 

 mostly out of our hands. In regard to wool growing, I regret 

 to say that we keep many more dogs than sheep. Even 

 growing vegetables for our city markets is now only profitable 

 to those who live near them. Several other branches of the 

 business are too much crowded. Some labor, then, can well 

 be spared for the production of another crop. To farmers in 

 some situations, cranberry growing would be a far more profit- 

 able business than any other they could follow. But if it were 

 only equally profitable, it must still be advantageous to pursue 

 it. 



The more varied our branches of successful industry may be, 

 the more self-reliant we are, and the more independent of fluc- 

 tuations in business, and even of national changes, we become. 

 The theme is exhaustless, and I will not pursue it farther. 

 Yankee shrewdness and enterprise now buys cargoes of foreign 

 productions with the mere frozen water of our frigid winter 

 clime — Yankee intelligence and industry may yet sell fine 

 summer productions of marsh water and sunlight for many 

 pounds of foreign silver and gold. May the pioneers reap 

 their proper reward. 



PLYMOUTH. 



PRESERVATION OF APPLES AND OTHER WINTER 



FRUITS. 



BY AUSTIN J. ROBERTS. 



This subject demands much attention, and, properly speaking, 

 it is one of the chief branches of fruit culture. It is impor- 

 tant that every one who cultivates or buys fruit should know all 

 the minutiae of the gathering, ripening, and preservatory pro- 

 cesses, each one of which is an art in itself. Nature gives us 

 the choicest fruits, which man too often destroys, for the want 

 of knowing how to take care of them. I have heard it remarked 



