CROPS AND PROFITS. 143 



against adverse influences, than any winter fruit I 

 have named. So fair a struggle, indeed, that if I 

 could only forego the visitations of the curculio and 

 of the moth, I might hope for an old-time fulness of 

 crop. The Strawberry apple, by reason, I think, of 

 its early maturity (and the same is true of the Red 

 Astrachan), has shown a more kindly recognition of 

 care than the later fruits. The moth, if it attacks, 

 does not destroy it. I count upon its brilliant color' 

 ing, and its piquant acidity in the first days of 

 August, as surely as I count upon the rains which 

 follow the in-gathering of the hay. There remained 

 a few trees of various old-fashioned sorts, such as the 

 Fall-Pippin, the Pearmain, the Cheseborough Rus- 

 set, and the black Gilliflower, which have shown 

 little thrift, and borne no fruit of which a modest 

 man would be inclined to boast. 



In short, there appeared so little promise of 

 eminent results, that after two or three years I gave 

 over all special culture of the majority of the trees, 

 and devoting the land to grass, left them to struggle 

 against the new sod as they best could. Fruit 

 growers and nursery men will object that the trial 

 was not complete ; and they will, with good reason, 

 aver that no fruit trees can make successful struggle 

 against firmly rooted grass. From all tilled crops, 

 within whose lines there are spaces of the brown 



