STATE POMOLOQICAL SOCIETY. 45 



and the next autumn bore its delicious fruit, which he named the 

 Pecker apple, and which he deemed so valuable that he grafted 

 his trees with its scions, and thus gave the start to this famous 

 fruit which is now so generally cultivated over the country. 



The Rebecca grape was from a chance seedling found in the 

 garden of Mr. E. M. Peake, of Hudson, New York, some twenty- 

 five years ago. 



Mr. Walker's plan for producing fine summer, autumH and 

 winter pears, commended itself to Mr. Downing, who pronounced 

 it "an easy mode for popular use." 



Notwithstanding Maine has not the position as a fruit-raising 

 State that she ought to possess, yet there has of late years been 

 considerable attention given to the subject. The Reports of the 

 Secretary of the Maine Board of Agriculture give evidence of 

 this. In them there is occasional mention made of some model 

 orchard ; or of some enterprising fruit-grower who has set an 

 example to be followed. 



In the Report of 1867, Mr. Calvin Chamberlain refers to a "Mr. 

 A."* who resided in one of the eastern counties — the son of a 

 farmer — whose practical remarks upon the subject of fruit-raising 

 led him to visit his orchard. He found a lot of seven acres filled 

 with " apple and pear trees, well grown, and bending under enor- 

 mous loads of fruit,", every one of which hj^d been planted and^ 

 grafted by Mr. A.'s own hands. Impressed by the excellent 

 appearance of the trees and fruit, Mr. Chamberlain was curious to 

 know the secret of such sucdess, and was informed by the propri- 

 etor, that it was attributable to constant thought and observation; 

 that he had carefully read all the books upon orcharding, but 

 derived little benefit from them for they were written with refer- 

 ence to other kinds of soil than his, which was naturally the 

 meanest in the State, such as no author who regarded his reputa- 

 tion had been bold enough to consider capable of being cultivated 

 for such a purpose. The soil was very thin, a coarse, loamy 

 gravel, lying on a tight pan, inclined to clay and full of stones — 

 say, about a hundred cords to the acre. The original growth was 

 " small hemlock, tamarack, cedar, spruce, some pine, and occasion- 

 ally a white maple with a hollow trunk." He cleared the land and 

 underdrained it in 1854. From that year until 1860, in different 



*I have been told that this was Hon. George P. Sewall, of Oldtown. That gentleman, 

 in 1872, sold at his door three hundred barrels of apples taken from his orchard. He 

 also maaufactured five hogsheads of cider. 



