18 



extent, tliat the manufacturers of beet-root sugar ask no 

 protective duties to enable them to compete with the 

 imported sugar which is made from the cane. The time 

 is coming when this matter will be taken up in our 

 Northern States ; and when that time arrives, the culti- 

 vation of the sugar beet will form an extensive and lu- 

 crative department in the business of flxrming. 



I do not know that the soil and climate of New Eng- 

 land would prove favorable for the cultivation of hops 

 on a large scale, but judging from the luxuriant growth 

 and fruitage of single vines, here and there, in our 

 neighborhood, the conclusion seems reasonable that the 

 ordinary kind of hops would flourish in our old-fashion- 

 ed fields, quite as well as another variety of " hop " in 

 our fashionable hotels, and prove much more profitable 

 to those engaged in " getting them up." 



Then we have the finer varieties of apples and pears, 

 with the smaller fruits — the strawberry, the raspberry, 

 the blackberry, and the cranberry — most of which re- 

 quire nice management, and some little enterprize to se- 

 cure success ; but which yield most generous returns for 

 the care and expense bestowed upon them. Of apples 

 I need not speak — though I am informed that one of 

 the members of your society has received four thousand 

 dollars for his crop of apples in a single year ! A few 

 years since, at the counter of the Brevoort House, in 

 New York city, I saw nineteen dollars and the express 

 charges paid for five pecks of pears ; and I was not 

 more surprised at the price paid, than at the remark of 

 one of the proprietors of the hotel, that the fruit came 

 from Boston, and that the finest pears and most of the 

 hot -house grapes used in that establishment, were 

 brought from the same city. 



