FBUIT TEEE3 



35 



The culture of fruit trees may be a source of 'profit. There ia bo other 

 pursuit connected with the farm, requiring only the same amount of labor 

 and expense, that is so lucrative. There is a great income in proportion to 

 the outlay. No crops of grain, grass, or esculent roots, other things being 

 equal, pay so well as the fruit crop. Many farmers annually get more profit 

 from their orchards, and receive more money for fruit, than for all the 

 other products pf the farm. One of my neighbors has gathered and sold 

 from one tree, this season, thirty bushels of fine fruit. An orchard of forty 

 Baldwin apple trees " has been known to produce in one season, three hun- 

 dred bushels of fine fruit." Says H. F. French, "At the lowest rate of 

 product that any man in his senses would estimate, as a common crop, an 

 apple orchard will give four times the amount of profit, as the same quantity 

 of land in grass for hay, with less cost for cultivation." 



Apples are in good repute for fattening horses, cattle and swine. 



Cider vinegar is the nicest and most agreeable of any, and readily brings 

 from three to five dollars in market. Cider molasses, made by boiling sweet 

 cider into a syrup, is excellent for making and preserving sauces. Brandy, 

 distilled from fermented cider, for certain useful purposes, is not excelled by 

 any other spirit. 



Pleasure, luxury, health and profit, are or ought to be powerful incentives 

 to every one, who owns an acre of land, to raise fruit trees. A farm, with- 

 out an orchard, is like a book without title-page or pictures ; or a painting 

 destitute of the proper light and shade ; or a heaven without stars. 



Your committee were invited to view six orchards and two nurseries. 

 Five of these have been set out since 1845 ; the sixth was an old orchard, 

 reclaimed by the process of grafting. Three of these orchards have already 

 received first premiums from other incorporated societies, and consequently 

 could not again receive a first premium, under the statute of 1855. 



All the orchards we examined, were in good condition, and looked beau- 

 tifully. 



ORCHAFtD OF MOSES STEBBINS. 



This orchard was undoubtedly the best orchard, and would have iaken the 

 first premium, had it not already drawn that premium from another society, 

 receiving the bounty of the State. His orchard stands upon table land in 

 Deerfield, just under the brow of sugar loaf mountain, and covers over four 

 acres. It contains two hundred trees, set out at intervals, since 1845. The 

 soil is a light, sandy loam ; partaking much of the nature of the soil in the 

 vicinity of Sugar Loaf, v\?hich is composed of new red sandstone. Previous 

 to setting out his trees, Mr. Stebbins treated his lot to a compost of slacked 

 lime and salt. On two acres, he plowed in sixty hundred pounds of lime, 

 sixteen bushels of salt, and six bushels of plaster. One hundred and twenty 

 trees stand on these two acres. The land has been cropped, annually. 

 This year, Mr. Stebbins has raised fifty bushels of corn, to the acre, in his 

 orchard. He used no manure, save about five hundred pounds of guano to 

 the acre, sowed on and plowed in. Your committee thought the lime and 

 salt had much to do with the thriftiness of both trees and corn. He gives 

 his trees a top dressing of compost every spring. Mr. Stebbins doea not 



