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THE COXNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



is with us to-night, and I am go'mg to call upon IMrs. F. C. 

 Atkins, of Hartford and Bolton, to say a word to us about the 

 "City Woman in the Country." 



Mrs. Atkins : Mr. Toastmaster and Friends : The sub- 

 ject of country life is a very interesting one to both my hus- 

 band and myself. Four or five years ago we went out into 

 the country one beautiful spring da}'. — I remember so well 

 the apple trees were laden w'ith blossoms and how delicious 

 the air smelled — the result was that we were so delighted, my 

 husband bought a farm and gave it to me. When I entered 

 the house on the farm T questioned whether I was to be con- 

 gratulated or not upon my possession, — but there was a clump 

 of beautiful lilac bushes near, the house that won my heart, 

 and so I felt we could make the house livable— of course that 

 is the first thing a woman thinks of. When we really got 

 into the house, we began to think of developing the land — we 

 had some choice land, too choice, we thought, to put into fruit. 

 We had some hilly lands, very rocky, which we thought was 

 well adapted to fruit culture. We got the advice of some 

 people and then attended the pomological meeting in this city 

 that winter, to gain information regarding our w^ork, and it 

 was at that meeting that we received great help and enthusi- 

 asm, and there also that we met some of the nurserymen and 

 became greatly interested in the planting of apple trees. Dur- 

 ing the winter and spring we spent our evenings studying the 

 fruit catalogues, trying to select the varieties we wished. The 

 trouble was, we wanted them all, and didn't see how we were 

 to make a choice and leave some of them out. You will laugh 

 when I tell you that our idea of planting an apple tree was to 

 dig a little hole and put the tree into it. Fortunately we be- 

 came acquainted with a man who was spraying- to kill what he 

 told me was San Jose Scale — I didn't know wdiat that was at 

 the time — near our home, and when he saw I was interested 

 he said he would be glad to help us with our planting, which 

 he arranged to do. Our land was so hilly and rocky that be- 

 fore we could plant the trees we had to do an immense 

 amount of blasting, which took a long time After the land 



