ABOUT FBUrrS, FLOWERS AND FAIIMING. 415 



fruit. An analogous case is seen in the penny-postage sys- 

 tena of England. Fruit will become more generally and 

 largely an article, not of luxury, but of daily and ordinary 

 diet. It will find its way down to the poorest table — and 

 the quantity consumed will make up in profit to the dealer, 

 Avliat is lost in lessening its price. A iew years and the 

 apple crop will be a matter of reckoning by fanners and 

 speculators, just as is now, the potato crop, the wheat crop, 

 the pork, etc. Nor will it create a home market alone. 

 By care it may be exported with such facility, that the 

 world -nTll receive it as a part of its diet. It will, in this 

 respect, follow the history of grains and edible roots, and 

 from a local and limited use, the apple and the pear wtU 

 become articles of universal demand. The reasons of such 

 an opinion are few and simple. It is a fruit always palat- 

 able — and as such, will be welcome to mankind whatever 

 their tastes, if it can be brought within their reach. The 

 western States will, before many years, be forested with 

 orchards. The fruit bears exportation kindly. Thus there 

 will be a sxipply; a possibility of distributing it by com- 

 merce, to meet a taste already existing. These views may 

 seem fanciful — ^may prove so ; but they are analogical. 

 Nor, if I inherit my three score years and ten, do I expect 

 to die, until the apple crop of the United States shall sur- 

 pass the potato crop in value, both for man and beast. It 

 has the double quality of palatableness, raw or cooked — it 

 is 2L permanent crop, not requiring annual planting — and it 

 produces more bushels to the acre than corn, wheat, or, on 

 an average, than potatoes. The calculations may be made, 

 allowing an average of fifteen bushels to a tree. The same 

 reasoning is true of the pear ; it and the apple, are to hold 

 a place yet, as universal eatables — a fruit-grain^ not known 

 in their past history. If not another tree should be set in 

 this county (Marion County), in ten years the annual crop 

 of apples will be 200,000 bushels. But Wayne County has 

 double our number of trees ; suppose, however, the ninety 



