38 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



"Pearmain" and "Seek-No-Further;" they are still with 

 us. Later on, the Rhode Island Greening and Spitzenberg 

 took the lead. The Baldwin came considerably later. 

 Sweet Bough was one of the first grafted varieties of apples 

 Mr. Gold remembered. 



Apples were plenty in those days, up to 1835, which was 

 an "off year," there being no apples throughout the state on 

 account of a hard freeze in May. Native kinds were the 

 main dependence. In every orchard of a hundred trees 

 there were all colors and flavors, some early and some late. 

 Some favorite kinds were propagated from suckers, sprouts 

 from roots wounded in plowing. Grafting was early prac- 

 ticed, a bunch of clay wrapped with swingling tow being 

 used to cover the stock. The first use of grafting wax 

 appeared in the thirties. 



Injurious insects were not troublesome in those days ; in 

 fact, the codlin-moth was little known until 1835. 



Mr, Gold's mother came to Connecticut from central 

 New York in 1819, and never saw a wormy apple until 

 then. The bag worm was then more abundant than in 

 recent years. The canker worm attracted attention in New 

 Haven and vicinity in the thirties, when Mr. Herrick studied 

 their habits and devised means to protect the elms from 

 their ravages. They were truly a frightful pest ; one could 

 not walk the streets of that city in their season without 

 collecting samples on his clothing. 



The dates of great ice storms, or of exceeding droughts, 

 can be obtained by counting the rings on old forest trees, 

 those in exposed places making growths as thin as paper 

 in several years after such visitations. 



Among pears, the Sugar, Orange and even the common 

 "Choke Pear" were then in use. Mr. Gold remembered the 

 introduction of the Bartlett about 1838-40. Seckel and 

 Virgalieu came earlier ; the latter sort spotted badly. But 

 they can all be grown now by spraying, as also can the fine 

 Flemish Beauty. A great many new varieties of pears came 

 in soon after the Bartlett. 



In Mr. Gold's early days peaches were very abundant 

 everywhere. But troubles with this fruit began to show 

 themselves, which finally came to be known as peach 



