76 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



something to say further on. The early sour was a nice apple, but 

 the single tree standing too near the hog-pen died suddenly after a 

 few years of good service, and the variety' was lost. I have not 

 met that apple since, and rarely find one so good. 



I have reasons for thinking this grafting of m}- father's was the 

 first done within the present limits of this county, as in after j^ears 

 I was called to do grafting in most of the towns, and on the farms 

 commenced near the same time, and then learned that no grafted 

 fruits had ever grown on them. In the twenty years following this 

 first successful grafting, my father occasiouall}' extended his work 

 and added a few varieties ; but in the whole his bearing, grafted 

 trees scarceh' counted beyond a hundred, while his orchards had 

 grown to a thousand. In these years a few other men had entered 

 this field of progress, prominent among whom, was Capt. Salmon 

 Holmes, from Oxford county, who made one of the best farms and 

 one of the largest grafted orchards in Foxcroft. 



My father's work ended in his death bj- accident in 1838. I then 

 returned from Michigan where I had been two years cutting out a 

 home in the big timber, and entered upon the care of the orchards 

 I had helped to plant, and where I continued for the next thirteen 

 3'ears. From this time I took a hand with the workers and did some 

 real labor for a few 3'ears in the cause of fruit culture ; and I hope 

 to be pardoned for the use I must make of the pronoun I in referring 

 to some of it. In disposing of one or two crops of apples I tired 

 of working the cider-mill two or three months in a season (the mill 

 worked for this and adjoining towns), and became disgusted with 

 selling good cooking apples in the orchard, sixteen bushels for a 

 dollar, and doing most of the work of picking and loading them. 

 Some years before this, I had some personal acquaintance with many 

 orchards and their owners, in Kennebec county ; had spent several 

 months in a good orchard district in Massachusetts, and had seen 

 something of Connecticut, New York and Ohio. The circumstances 

 in which I was placed in 1838 were urgent prompters in the way of 

 orchard improvement. With abundant material to work upon, and 

 a considerable circle of acquaintance from which to get good advice 

 and better fruits, I entered with considerable zeal upon the work of 

 improving myself and the orchards. My success in the wa}' of good 

 advice was rapid and satisfactory for the time, and in collectiug 

 varieties of apples I was soon over-loaded. I met and made the 

 acquaintance of Marcian Seavey and Dr. E. Holmes at the printing 



