72 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



PROGRESS OF ORCHARDIXG AND FRUIT CULTURE IX 



PISCATAQUIS COUXTY. 



By Calvin Chamberlaix, Foxcroft. 



I propose to tell you some things about orchards ; for at one 

 time Dr. Holmes and I and a few other fellows knew a great deal 

 about them ; but I shall tell you about some other things first. 



I came to this Piscataquis county in October, 1810. I came to 

 help my father make a farm, which he had begun to do alone. I 

 came too late in the season to help him any that year. I soon 

 learned that men did not work at making farms all the year. They 

 did something else a part of the time. I had a good deal to do 

 before I had learned how to work all day with my father. I guess 

 I was pretty busy the first year I was here. 



The next summer, 1812, my father cut ten acres of the trees on 

 the hillside south from the house. There were many kinds of trees, 

 many large hemlock and spruce. One windy day in September my 

 father set fire along the north side at the bottom of the hill, and 

 the fire went up the hill so quick, that the whole piece was burning 

 at the same time. 



In the summer of 1814, a woman kept a school in our neighbor's 

 barn only a quarter mile away. It was not a good place for a 

 school. When the weather was not good the door was shut and all 

 the light came through the cracks between the boards. This place 

 then had a name. I learned at home and at school to say that we 

 lived at Foxcroft, County of HaucocV, and Commonwealth of 

 Massachusetts, and Mr. Strong was governor. One man had a log 

 house with two rooms. The school was kept in one of the rooms 

 in the winter. Some large boys and girls went to school then. 

 The trees were all the wa}' from our house over there. A road was 

 cut for a sled. 



Our father had a pair of oxen that liked to take us over there on 

 the sled and they would do it pretty quick when the road was good. 

 It was not more than a mile. The large boys and girls at that 

 school had all moved here from Oxford county. A log school- 

 house was built after that. The walls were laid up full six 

 feet high. A stone chimney was in one end, and near 

 the other end were two windows of nine lights of 7x1) 

 glass. For thorough ventilation no modern architecture 



