54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



appreciates and loves these beautiful fruits for their own 

 sakes ; then she or he will produce better ones ; and the 

 better they are, the more you will get for them. 



These people want faith in themselves, in the soil of Massa- 

 chusetts, in the market, and in the plants and trees. You 

 must be a believer if j^ou expect to win out. If you go into 

 anything in uncertainty, it is pretty sure to be unsuccessful. 

 You must believe in what you are doing, in order to suc- 

 ceed at it. Faith in the soil, faith in self, faith in the fruits, 

 — everything else is here, and there are dollars in it, and a 

 whole lot of them, and then a profit on top of all that. 



Now, what shall we plant? That question of "what" 

 opens up a whole wide field. Perhaps you have heard the 

 question of a small Irish lad to his mother, ' ' Mother Mur- 

 phy, will 3'ou have an onion?" to which she replies, "No, 

 thank you, darling ; I never eat fruit." That is one idea of 

 fruit. The other day I read a statement made by the Treas- 

 ury Department ; in deciding some tariff matter they were 

 compelled to designate frogs' legs as poultry ; and only last 

 week one department at Washington had to decide that 

 "potatoes are fruit;" and these, I think, are in line with 

 Mother Mm'phy's onions. 



Of course there is a whole wide range of hardy tree fruits, 

 as well as small ones, but it seems to me the fruit grower 

 must specialize in a way. A farmer cannot succeed in all 

 kinds of fruit, probably ; many farmers wouldn't be situated 

 rightly ; many times the men or the women are not fitted for 

 raising all kinds ; and many times the markets could be bet- 

 ter served with one kind than another. If a man lives in a 

 valley with rich, alluvial soil, like this Connecticut valley, 

 he can raise certain kinds that another man situated back on 

 the hills could not; and, on the other hand, a man might 

 not have the market or the inclination. All these thinjjs 

 should be considered ; and so it is a local question. Each 

 man must take up for himself the market conditions, the mil- 

 road facilities, highway conditions and a dozen other things 

 which enter into the question ; but the whole line of small 

 fruits may be successfully grown in Massachusetts, and ought 

 to be. If the money and energy expended in the so-called 



