46 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



years, he planted his trees, making three experiments in the 

 planting. The details of these experiments are too lengthy to be 

 repeated here, but the result was, that by the year 1866 he had 

 gathered, in one year, 150 bushels by hand, and had something 

 over one hundred bushels of cider apples besides. The same land 

 was under cultivation with barley and potatoes. He predicted, 

 and perhaps by this time his prediction has been verified, that in 

 a few years he would show a crop of a thousand bushels. In his 

 experiments the gentleman tried about a hundred varieties of the 

 apple, and threw away about fifty as valueless in his soil. 



The discussions contained in the Secretary's Report of 18t2, 

 upon the subject of " Orchard and Fruit Culture," can be read by 

 persons contemplating the cultivation of fruit in this State with 

 pleasure and profit. They will there learn from the experience of 

 one of our most successful orchardists what may be expected from 

 an intelligent and careful attention' to the pursuit. 



" I have a pear orchard," says Mr. Perley, "which has been 

 under cultivation ten years. The crops I have taken from it have 

 paid all the expenses of cultivation, the expense of buying and 

 planting the trees ; and I have these trees as they now stand over 

 and above the expense. I do not know what they are worth, but 

 no one could induce me to cut them down for ten nor twenty dollars 

 apiece. So, I say it is not all out-go. While you are cultivating 

 your ground the ten years, you may have your pay as you go 

 along." 



There is everything to encourage fruit culturists in these dis- 

 cussions. Hints are given in regard to the various details to 

 which I have referred, and those who have old, unthrifty orchards 

 may there learn how to make them profitable. 



There is one evil against which fruit-growers have to contend 

 in this State, especially in the larger towns, to which it may be 

 proper to allude. It is the propensity of boys, young and old, to 

 steal and appropriate the choicest fruits to their own use. The 

 annoyance, when going to gather some fine fruit, whose progress 

 you have been daily watching with a view to its enjoyment, to 

 find it gone, is well understood. 



Proper instruction in the family and in the school, with an oc- 

 casional and thorough application of the law to offenders, will do 

 much to protect us from this annoyance. In many countries in 

 Europe, fruit is as safe from depredation as other property. An 

 American gentleman travelling in Prussia noticed a wisp of straw 



