RURAL LIFE IN LITCHFIELD COUNTY 



what causes the distinct enlargement on many apple 

 tree trunks. The scion, which was inserted by means 

 of the cleft graft, often grew more rapidly than the 

 original stock, making the enlargement or bulge at the 

 point of union. 



Choice varieties of apples and pears began to be 

 propagated shortly after the American Revolution. 

 Aside from the northern spy, to whose Connecticut 

 origin reference has already been made, another fine 

 commercial apple was originated in Litchfield County. 

 The Hurlburt stripe, or Hurlburt, is a well known late 

 fall variety that originated on the farm of Lemuel 

 Hurlburt of Winchester, and is first recorded in the 

 works on fruit about 1850. 



The growing and selling of nursery stock became an 

 established business about one hundred years ago. As 

 the people began to select improved varieties and the 

 nurseries began to propagate and disseminate them, 

 every family soon made a practice of surrounding their 

 dwelling with choice varieties of pears, peaches, plums, 

 quinces and cherries, to say nothing of the smaller 

 fruits, such as grapes, currants and gooseberries. 



The native berry fruits, such as the strawberry, the 

 blackberry, the huckleberry, the blueberry and the rasp- 

 berry, were common everywhere, either In meadow, 

 swamp, on hillside pastures or newly cleared forest 

 areas; and so, little attention was given to the garden 



