STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 95 



general care. Grafting he bad learned from observation when a 

 3-011 ng man, and had practiced it successfully for many years. He 

 grafted near the collar of the tree for hardy varieties, those more 

 tender being grafted in the top. At one time he had in cultivation, 

 for purposes of testing, more than thirty sorts of apples, upwards 

 of twentv of pears, about the same number of grapes, and quite a 

 variety of small fruits. His culture of fruits led him to correspond 

 with the leading fruit growers of the country, and this led to his 

 writing for the agricultural press, which he did quite largely during 

 the last dozen years of his life. He carried on a somewhat exten- 

 sive correspondence with the late Mr. Charles Downing, and re- 

 ceived from that gentleman, as a present, a copy of the large edition 

 of his "Fruit and Fruit Trees of America." He wrote for the 

 Maine Farmer^ Massachusetts Ploughman, The Home Farm, the 

 New York Tribune and other agricultural journals, to all of which 

 his contributions were most gladly welcomed. His contributions 

 were generally upon questions of practical experience in orchard 

 management, and from his long and close observation, and his terse, 

 vigorous manner of expressing his views, his articles were especially 

 valuable. He based no statements on tradition ; he hated super- 

 stition ; he disliked all forms of sham or pretence. One of his 

 articles, written against the raising of cider apples, and the making 

 of apples into cider, was rejected bv the agricultural paper to which 

 it was sent ; as was also another against horse racing at fairs ; but 

 it was not many years afterward that the same paper expressed, 

 editorially, the same sentiments to which he had given utterance. 

 His articles on the law of transmission in plants, on the circulation 

 of sap, on the latent buds in fruit trees and their capability to be 

 induced into bearing boughs, led him into public controverseries, 

 through the press, with writers who differed with him, but who were 

 all constrained to acknowledge his ability, and that the facts which 

 he had observed and stated were more potent than man}- pretty 

 theories.- 



At the incorporation of this Society, in 1873, Mr Smith became 

 a life member, and for many years was a constant attendant upon 

 its meetings, and a large exhibitor at its fairs, in both of which he 

 always manifested a lively interest. It is not too much to say that 

 his example, his writings for the press, his public discussions at 

 pomological meetings, and his exhibition of fruits at our fairs, have 

 done a great deal to help on a knowledge of fruits, an understand- 



