58 



Value of Crop. 



Twelve bushels wheat, $24.00 



Thirteen hundred pounds straw, sold at 75 cents, . 9.75 



$33.75 

 Deduct expenses, . . 14.12 



Net profit, . . . $19.63 



A. L. Smith. 

 Dover, Oct. 15, 1860. 



REPORT ON FRUIT. 



" And the Lord God took the man and put him into the gar- 

 den * * to dress it and to keep it." 



" To dress it and to keep it," — to cultivate this garden, was 

 the first duty imposed upon the first man. The phrase is ex- 

 pressive and full of meaning. We are to dress this garden by 

 causing it to blossom and to bear abundantly those productions 

 that are necessary alike to our subsistence and to our love of 

 beauty. We are to drain the swamps and plant the hill-sides ; to 

 substitute the Gravenstein and the Baldwin for the bitter apples 

 of indolence ; the Bartlett and the Beurre d'Anjou for the hard 

 button pears that once grew by the road-side ; the Concord and 

 the Diana for the wild fox grape of the swamps ; the well-tilled 

 and productive cranberry meadow for the unsightly morass. We 

 are to overcome and exterminate our most potent enemies, those 

 insignificant insects that are the bane of modern horticulture, and 

 again see trees loaded with luscious plums and blushing peaches, 

 triumphing in the downfall of their ancient enemy — that incarna- 

 tion of evil — the Curculio. 



In this noble work of dressing and keeping the garden, our 

 good County of Norfolk has done much that is creditable to her. 

 Our generous contributors come up, year after year, to our An- 

 nual Festival, bringing their oflFerings of the first fruits of the 

 valley and the hill-side. Honor and thanks to them ; but let us 

 do still more and better. Our work enlarges before us. There 

 are rocky and unproductive hill-sides to be changed to fruitful 

 orchards ; there are vacant door-yards, with room for cherries 

 and pears ; there are thousands of apple trees all over the County 

 and State, now bearing worthless fruit, but waiting for grafts of 

 the Red Astrachan and the Russet ; and there are clamoring mul- 

 titudes in cities and in towns, and in other lands, with hands ex- 



