STATE POMOLOaiCAL SOCIETY. 75: 



Enoch Wood, about a mile from East Wilton village, supposed to be 

 about forty years old. For the history and character of this won- 

 derful tree I am indebted to the kindness of C. J. Talbot, Esq., of 

 Wilton, who at my suggestion has obtained full details. 



"The tree," he says, "stands on rocky upland, of a strong, 

 deep and rich soil, exactly adapted to the growth and proper de- 

 velopment of apple trees," on the southerly side of the dwelling 

 bouse, between the house and the public road, about twenty feet 

 from the house. Between the house and the tree is a bank wall 

 about three feet deep, filled in with earth on the side of the house, 

 which stands on ground higher than tlie tree. The eai-ly treat- 

 ment of the tree is not stated. But Mr. Wood has been in the 

 habit of banking his house in the fall, sometimes with dirt from 

 the roadside, and sometimes with chip-dirt ; in the spring he 

 scrapes the banking with a hoe off' the bank wall towards and 

 sometimes around the tree. The tree is in a thrifty condition. 

 About two and a half feet from the ground it branches into five 

 main branches, and again into fifteen branches about seven feet 

 from the ground. And the top fills a circle three rods, or fifty feet 

 in diameter. Roots of the tree an inch in diameter are found in 

 the cellar of the house. Mr. Wood, the present proprietor, has 

 gathered the fruit for the past nineteen years, "and in no year," 

 says Mr. Talbot's letter, "has it been less than twenty bushels. 

 In 1869, he gathered from it sixty-five bushels. The average yield 

 is about forty bushels." It is a constant bearer. Mr. Wood has 

 refused $200 for the tree, as well he might. The fruit is large and 

 good and ripens at the end of summer. 



Cole tells us of an apple tree on the farm of Mr. Eames in Natick, 

 Mass., seen by himself, which was grafted to the Porter when 

 seventy-five years old, and the seventh year afterwards bore fifteen 

 barrels of apples. The original Hurlbut tree, he tells us, bore forty 

 bushels one year and twenty the next, and the original Bars apple 

 bore sixty bushels one year. But I know of no apple tree now in 

 fruit among us which has ever surpassed the yield of Mr. Wood's 

 tree. A few pear ti-ees and a few apple trees of early times have 

 surpassed it. Among the former is the famous pear tree at Vin- 

 cennes, Ind., which in 1834, bore one hundred and eighty-four 

 bushels of fruit, and in 1840, one hundred and forty bushels. And 

 the same author mentions a Havard pear tree, belonging to Mr. 

 Wyeth of Cambridge, which bore nine barrels of fruit. 



