119 



Winter apples. Early apj)les for Summer and Fall use aie 

 sometimes quite prolitablc, but when produced in large 

 quantities, the demand is not always equal to the supply, 

 and remunerative prices cannot be obtained. Therefore, 

 winter apples for the most part, are considered the most 

 profitable, and largely for foreign market, and the hard, 

 rocky land of Essex County is well adapted to produce 

 hard, late-keeping apples for that purpose. 



I well remember the discussion that took place at the 

 time the $100 premium was offered for a new variety of 

 apples originated in this county, equal to the Baldwin or 

 Roxbury Russet, and some of the men that took part in it. 

 They were men of long experience and careful observation, 

 and the reason they assigned was, that varieties of apples 

 in time deteriorated and became less valuable. 



It is an arrangement of nature ; everything that grows 

 has its maturity and decline ; and I think it is so with vari- 

 eties of apples, and our own observation confirms it. 



The Roxbury Russet and Green Sweet were adapted to 

 spring and summer use ; the Rhode Island Greening and 

 other varieties, for winter use ; all of which were produced 

 in my father's orchard, to a good state of perfection, in 

 days of my childhood. 



Now all those varieties have greatly deteriorated and the 

 most of them not worth cultivating. 



The Baldwin apple originated in a wood in the town of 

 Wilmington, as is supposed, more than a hundred years 

 ago. They were at first called the Butters apple, for the 

 man that owned the land, after which they were called the 

 Pecker apple in consequence of the woodpeckers perfor- 

 ating the bark. 



Col. Laomi Baldwin, a distinguished engineer who 

 planned and engineered for the construction of the Middle- 

 sex Canal from Merrimac river at Chelmsford (now Lowell) 

 to Boston, in 1793 and 1794, in some of his perambulations 



