18 Tree Culture. 



with fewer hazards than he who puts faith in scrip and rent-rolls. It has 

 been proved by repeated trials, and is matter of statistical record, that of 

 those who engage in the greater adventures of mercantile business and 

 speculation, a very large proportion end their days in the sorrows of bank- 

 niptcy. No such fearful risk is made by him who is content to own a 

 few acres ; to stock them with choice trees ; to provide for their wantS) 

 and then to confide cheerfully in a good Providence for the showers arid 

 sunshine which are essential to the growth and ripening of fruits. 



The original cost of a fruit tree is but a trifle, if procured from a nui- 

 sery ; and almost nothing if raised from the seed. It occupies only a 

 narrow space of ground, and this without excluding hoed crops or grass- 

 The amount of attendance which it needs is never large, and is always on 

 the decrease. But when it has leached its maturity it will yield an an- 

 nual income of sometimes $10 ; sometimes §20 ; and in rare instances, 

 even $50.* 



We flatter ourselves that we are shrewd enough to know when we are 

 well off, and that we are competent to look after our own interests. We 

 take fire with indignation and wrath, if anything contrary to this is even 

 hinted at. But are we not sometimes a little singular in our way of man- 

 ifesting this shrewdness and self-sufficiency. While, in ordinary times, 

 the annual profits of our farming are allowed to be small, we yet toil on> 

 year after year, in the old beaten track; doing this season the same work 

 we did last season ; expecting to repeat the process next season, and so 

 on until our limbs are stiffened by age, and we are compelled to resign 

 the plow and the hoe to our successors. Now, without supposing it po»- 

 gible to carry forward the operations of a farm in any other way than by 

 repeating each successive year the work of the last, is it not both possible 

 and feasible for farmers, as they advance in years, and lose the vigor of 

 youth, to gradually release themselves from the necessity of cropping a 

 large number of acres, and this, too, without diminishing their yearly in- 

 come ! I am old enough to fancy it practicable for every farmer to adopt 

 a course which shall greatly lessen his toils, as years grow heavy upon 



* There is a Virgalieu Pear Tree in the garden of Dr. Hastings, of Clinton, the 

 fruit of which has netted him 850 in one season. Dr. Hastings is not alone in his 

 horticultural success. Isaac De.nnison, of Albany, has reported a single crop of 

 pluni.s from four acres of land that sold for SI200. It is on record that a green 

 gage plum tree, at Charlestown, Mass.. yielded several successive crops each worth 

 fropi $40 to $50. The apple orchard of Robeut L. Pell, of Ulster county, is eaid 

 to yield about $40,000 per annum, clear of all expenses. His orchard is probably 

 the largest in America. His usual crop is 10,000 barrels, which will always com- 

 mand in New-York $6 a barrel. In London they have been sold, at retail, as high 

 us $21 per barrel. 



