A GENERAL SURVEY OF CONNECTICUT AND 

 ITS HORTICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES 



WHILE geographically one of the smallest states of 

 the Union, and covering but. one degree of latitude 

 (41 to 42), owing to the great diversity of soil 

 and var3ang elevations from the sea level, along the whole 

 southern border, to 900 and 1,100 feet in sections of Tolland 

 county, and 1,200 and 1,500 in portions of Litchfield, Con- 

 necticut is adapted to as wide a range of horticultural pro- 

 ductions as any state outside of the semi-tropic fruit belt, 

 the "season" of many of the quick-maturing species and 

 varieties of fruits, flowers and vegetables often being entirely 

 over on the light soil in the Connecticut valley and along 

 the sound shore when like species and varieties are only 

 just beginning to ripen on the cooler, moist soils of the hills 

 of Tolland and Litchfield counties. Strawberries and green 

 peas from East Hartford and Glastonbury supply the Hart- 

 ford market, while on the Bolton hills, only 12 miles away, 

 the blooming vines give promise of the crop that is to come 

 after the valley season is entirely over; so that "home- 

 grown " strawberries are usually to be had in the Hartford 

 market for a period of six or seven weeks, the sound shore, 

 Housatonic valley and Litchfield hills supplying New 

 Haven, Bridgeport and other cities of the state through 

 equally long seasons. 



From the earliest settlement of the state, fruit growing 

 for the family home supply has been a prominent feature of 

 Connecticut agriculture, the apple being most in evidence, 

 and the old seedling trees scattered over all our farms today 

 are plain evidence that our ancestors took their apple juice 

 through the spigot of the cider barrel rather than fresh from 

 the pulp of the fresh fruit of some finer variety. A hun- 

 dred years ago every farm-house cellar wintered from 30 to 

 50 barrels of cider, while today it is hardly respectable to 



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