74 STATE POMOLUGICAL SOCIETY. 



the road flowed over the surface. The blacksmith's shop standing 

 near in the earlier years of the tree, had attracted to itself many 

 people with their teams. And the farm stock and teams necessa- 

 rily were much in the road near the tree. There had been no 

 cultivation of the ground since my recollection. The tree had 

 ample space unoccupied on all sides. 



The other one of these remarkable trees stood on the south side 

 of an orchard near the northern border of a rich, highly cultivated 

 kitchen gard'en. It was surrounded by other trees on three sides, 

 and on those three sides the ground was, and for a long time had 

 been, in grass. The soil of both was a fine, brownish loam, 

 neither very wet nor very dry. 



I have investigated the history of two remarkable trees men- 

 tioned in the Maine Farmer in the autumn of 1872, the one of Mr. 

 Watson Reynolds of Lubec, the other of Mr. J. C. Chadbourne of 

 Waterboro'. 



Mr. Reynolds' tree is sixty years old, the trunk is two feet in 

 diameter, and six feet in height below the limbs. The top covers 

 a circle about thirly-five feet in diameter. It stands in an open 

 field of good grass land. The ground occupied by the ti'ce was 

 formerly a garden. The grass around the tree is never mowed. 

 Every autumn the tree is banked two feet deep with chip dirt, 

 which the hens are allowed to scratch about every spring. It is a 

 seedling, a constant bearer. For twenty-four years previous to 

 the last it had never yielded less than four barrels ; the highest 

 yield, ten barrels, — average, eight barrels. 



I deeply regret that I have lost the letter of Mr. Chadbourne 

 and forgotten his address. I state from recollection. Mr. Chad- 

 bourne's tree also stands in open ground. It is a Rhode Island 

 Greening. It is thirty-eight years old. The extent of the top is 

 somewhat larger than that of the Reynolds tree. The soil is now 

 uncultivated. But the tree stands near the border of a swale, 

 which runs down from the barn-yard. In 1872 the tree bore forty 

 bushels of apples, besides the windfalls estimated at ten bushels. 

 It has been a great bearer for many years, but I am unable to state 

 the product in detail. 



But the most remarkable tree among us, so far as I have been 

 able to learn, is a tree of the variety called the Sarah. This vari-. 

 ety originated in Wilton sixty years ago and upwards. The parent 

 tree is still living. The distinguished individual of the variety is 

 a sprout of the parent, now standing in the orchard of Mr. 



