STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 9 



feet in diameter. One, and the last, which I had cut about ten 

 years since, was three feet or more in diameter. These trees were 

 not set out with any regularity ; they were in groups of two and 

 three, and the groups from ten to thirty rods apart. Those trees 

 are all gone ; at the time mentioned they had evidently passed 

 their prime. As a boy I tested the quality of their fruit as often 

 as I could get it, being good for my pockets full at any one raid. 

 As I recollect, the fruit was mostly summer and fall varieties and 

 very toothsome ; in shape and flavor different from the standard 

 varieties now most common in New England. They had their 

 names, some of which I recollect, for instance — Rusty Coat, a 

 delicious little apple, shaped like a strawberry, rather dry ; Bailey 

 Apple, Long John, Betsey Apple, a family name; Honey Sweet, 

 tree which was three feet in diameter ; Miller Apple, from the 

 mealy appearance of its skin. 



Within the same field was a garden fenced in, containing a num- 

 ber of trees within the enclosure, one of which was called the 

 Garden Sweet, and sweet it really was. These trees were smaller 

 and evidently younger than those I have described as standing in 

 groups, and were undoubtedly planted by my grandfather. They 

 are gone. 



Nearly opposite my house, and about seven rods distant from it, 

 stands a large apple tree upon the old Barstow field, with which I 

 have been familiarly acquainted for nearly all of the fifty-seven 

 years I have lived in this world. It has changed very little in fifty 

 years. Its fruit is poor in quality and quantity. It is two and 

 one-half feet in diameter two feet from the ground. I have never 

 tested the age of apple trees by counting the rings on the stump, 

 but I should set the age of that tree at from one hundred and 

 twenty-five to one hundred and fifty 3^ears. * * * 



Some choke pear trees on the Hopkins farm, north of mine, one 

 and one-half feet in diameter, now decayed, go back one hundred 

 years at least. 



Like myself, I suppose you have heard old people descant upon 

 the productiveness of certain trees in their neighborhoods, .bearing 

 twenty-five, thirty and thirty-five bushels. 



Did the first apple trees in Maine and other parts of New Eng- 

 land of which we have any knowledge, attain to a greater size 

 than their descendants ? Did they produce more largely than their 

 successors ? If so, I think the virgin soil should have the credit." 



Of a valuable apple formerly largely cultivated in the neighbor- 



