34 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Reds, and you will make no mistake if 3'oa select either of them, 

 the Cherr}', Fay's Prolific, or Versailles. 



We will now notice some of the small fruits that are grown on 

 •thorny bushes. In Matthew I think the ques'ion is asked "Do 

 men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?" And St. Luke, 

 if I recollect rightly, in alluding to the same subject calls it the 

 bramble bush. Both referring to the impossibility of growing good 

 fruit on such mean scrubby bushes. And it was impossible in those 

 da3's, but times have changed. The desert has not only been made 

 to blossom like the rose, but we get some of our best fruits from 

 the worst thorns and brambles I ever saw And if we do not 

 gather grapes and figs from them we do something just about as 

 good. Where will you find a worse thorn and bramble, or a much 

 better fruit than a good, well ripened Snyder blackberry, or a thistle 

 that will prick worse than the thorns on a Smith's Improved Goose* 

 berry bush? And yet their fruit is about equal to the grape aud fig, 

 and I can heartily recommend them both as the best of all others 

 of their kind for a general market crop and for home use. There 

 are many inducements why the cultivation of small fruits should be 

 encouraged. They are not only the most profitable when rightly 

 managed but the proceeds are more regular and sure. There is no 

 off year in the business as with orchard fruits, neither are they so sen- 

 sitive to drought and rains as are our common field crop- . But there 

 are other and higher considerations of a moral and social nature 

 that should be prized of far more value than mere dollars and cents. 

 There are no demoralizing influences connected with it, as there are 

 with the trotting horse and the race course, neither are men so sub- 

 ject to disappointment and losses. It notouly Irings a man in con- 

 tact with the most intelligent portion of society, but it is so attract- 

 ive and elevating in its nature that the ladies, who constitute the 

 best half of our community, can engage and become co-laborers in 

 their cultivation And when you take all things into the account, 

 the ins and the outs, the ups and the downs, I think that for a 

 young man especially who intends to follow rural pursuits it has 

 more attractions and advantages than any other branch of agricul- 

 ture, and he can do no better than to engage in their cultivation- 



Prof. W. M. Munson from the experiment station sends out a 

 general bulletin on the 'Varieties of Fruit" best adapted, or growing 

 most successfully in the State at the present time. From this the 

 following varieties are recommended for Aroostook, Piscataquis, 



