1 1 8 Notes and Gleanings. 



Early Fruits and Vegetables from Delaware. — I want to call public 

 attention to the great success which is attending fruit-culture in the above State. 



The ^'- little fntit Statc,^'' as she is sometimes called, possesses a wonderful 

 capacity for raising every description of berry, fruit, or vegetable, not only excel- 

 ling all other States in abundance, but in beauty, size, vigor, color, taste, earli- 

 ness, and freedom from disease, to an extent little known or appreciated by those 

 who have paid no attention to the subject. 



The distinguishing features of Delaware are the warm, rich soil, and the early 

 season. A large portion of it is from one week to ten days earlier than New 

 Jersey ; and, in the southern portions of the peninsula, some crops are harvested 

 two weeks or more before they ripen at Philadelphia. To a gardener or fruit- 

 grower, an advantage of this kind is worth thousands of dollars. 



Sooner or later, the entire peninsula must become the great fruit and vegeta- 

 ble garden for early products for New York and Northern markets ; and there 

 are many excellent opportunities for those who like a life among fruits and 

 flowers. 



I will give you a few instances of success. 



Apple-trees thrive as if they knew or desired no more favorable locality. 

 Nothing can exceed the beauty of the trees, their healthiness, freedom from 

 disease, vigor of growth, and production. Trees yield here from one to two 

 years earlier than farther north ; and, for early summer-apples, the prices received 

 are almost fabulous. From a seven-year-old apple-tree seven dollars' worth 

 have been taken, and from a twelve-year-old one thirty dollars have been 

 realized. Large orchards are exceedingly profitable. 



Pear-trees yield early, and in perfect luxuriance. All kinds succeed to admi- 

 ration, and are troubled with no disease, worms, or leaf-blight whatever. 



An orchard of four hundred dwarf pear-trees only four years old averaged, 

 last fall, one basket per tree ; and from one tree, three baskets. All were sent to 

 New York, and averaged six dollars per basket, or twenty-four hundred dollars for 

 the entire acre. Two pear-trees at Milford yielded the owner fifty-six dollars. 



Peaches, which form the largest orchard-product of the State, are exceed- 

 ingly profitable, whether grown on small or large farms. Some idea of the 

 magnitude of this production can be gained from the fact, that, last year, 

 the entire crop sent to market by railroad and water-communication reached 

 the figures of a million and a hundred and eight thousand baskets by railroad, 

 and seven hundred and fifty thousand by water. 



James Fennimore of New-Castle County sold from an orchard of a hundred 

 acres (ten thousand trees), in four consecutive years, eighty-seven thousand 

 dollars' worth of peaches. This is a positive fact. Another case is true, where 

 an orchard of less than two thousand trees yielded in one season four thousand 

 dollars net profit. 



Another, near Dover, which I myself saw in crop-time, yields from seventy 

 acres a profit of ten thousand dollars yearly ; the purchasers buying the crop 

 on the trees. 



There are other instances where a place of forty acres yields two thousand 

 dollars per year ; one of three and a half acres yields five hundred dollars per 



