29 
SOUTHERN cultivator. 
renders it peculiarly valuable, in our Mew England climate, 
is the fact that it ripens two or three weeks earlier than 
any other good variety with which they are acquainted. 
They congratulate Mr. Bull, the producer of this seedling 
grape, upon the success which has resulted from his 
patience, perseverance and skill, and they congi'atulate 
the horticulturists of the country upon the addition of so 
fine a variety to our native grapes. Your Committee have 
partaken of more than one bottle of wine made from this 
grape, but they assure the members of the Club that they 
do not speak under the influence of wine when they say 
that they know of no other grape in this country, as well 
adapted to the production of wine, as the Concord grape. 
In behalf of the Committee, 
Joseph Reynolds, Chairman. 
England Farmer. 
The following very able series articles, from the 
pen of Dr. Jenkins, of Mississippi, were originally pub- 
lished in the Natchez Courier. They abound in valuable 
information, and should be carefully perused by all fruit- 
growers, horticulrurists, and land-owners in the South ; 
FEUIT CULTURE IN THE SOUTH. 
No. 1. 
Messrs. Editors — Preliminary to some views I will 
give upon the subject of fruit culture in the South, in a 
subsequent number, I desire in the present communication 
to call your attention to the entire range of horticulture, 
and the bearing the subject presents to the Southern land- 
holder as a source of wealth. 
In times past, the products of the garden, but more es- 
pecially of the orchard, received only a partial attention, 
or were entirely neglected among us; but at the present 
day, no one who reads the Southern periodicals devoted to 
horticulture can have failed to perceive that this depart- 
ment of our industrial resourcs has received a vast impulse 
and that the opinion so generally entertained that the horti- 
cultural productions of temperate latitudes could not be suc- 
cessfully grown in the planting States, is entirely falaci- 
ous. 
The rapidity and facility of carriage by railroads converg- 
ing to the sea-board ports of South Carolina and Georgia, 
in connection with their weekly or semi- weekly lines of 
steamships to the North, has enabled the planters of the 
interior to supply the markets of the great Northern cities 
with the smaller fruits and vegetables, before the frost and 
snow have disappeared from the earth at the North. Tons 
of early peas, of corn in roasting ears, of Irish potatoes, of 
okra, of beans, and other table luxuries, are now annu.ally 
raised for export to Northern consumers, and yield a 
larger profit to the Southern grower than any crop he can 
cultivate. Nor has the enterprise of the people of those 
two States been confined to a single department of horti- 
culture as a source of wealth. Flourishing nurseries have 
been established : vast orchards of fruit trees have been 
planted; varieties of fruit originated, better suited to tiie 
climate than exortic sorts ; and the test been fully made 
that they can supply Northern markets with delicious 
varieties of the apple and the pear, fully two months ear- 
lier than similar fruits mature at the North. 
Our own State not having as yet the facilities of access 
to market enjoyed by our brethren on the Atlantic sea- 
board jan hardly be expected to rival them in extent ofj 
production ; nevertheless our exports already are by n® j 
means inconsiderable. I have been unable to ascertain ! 
the value of our peach crop and garden produce sent to 
the New Orleans market, but T have good authority for i 
saying that one of our orchardists upon the low lands of j 
the river has this year realized from the sales of his fruit \ 
in the New Orleans market fully eight hundred dollars to j 
the acre. When the great lines of railroad now under 
contract are completed through the interior of our State, a 
portion of the lands and the laborers upon its borders can 
be most profitably diverted from the culture of cotton to 
the products of the garden and the orchard, and the sup- 
ply of both Southern and Northern markets will add great- 
ly to the wealth of our State. 
That we enjoy a soil and a climate adqiirably adapted to 
the successful culture of the best marketable fruits, cannot 
be doubted. A skillful and enterprising planter of War- 
ren county has proved that the pear can be grown in his 
locality, and yield on immense profit to the acre. Having 
been favored with the perusal of a letter addressed by Col. 
Hebron to one of my neigbors, I am enabled to state that 
his present year’s crop has yielded him a profit of six hun- 
dred dollars per acre, and when all his trees now planted 
(about 10,000) come into bearing, I cannot doubt but his 
sales will reach, if they do not exceed, S‘50,000 per annum. 
I can also state that his trees are planted in the midst of 
his cotton, (thus securing them a thorough cultivation,) 
and that when at mature age, the loss to his cotton crop 
from their shade, and the land they occupy, is about one- 
half. Supposing, then, his entire cotton fields planted 
with fruit trees, he raises still half a crop of cotton, and has 
the large profit of SbOO per acre besides from bis fruit. 
This profit will not appear surprising, when we take into 
considerstion the fine quality of his fruit its rarity, and 
consequently its high price at Southern markets. 
Even at the North, where there is keen competition, the 
profits of fruit growing have been larger than that of any 
other crop. I see from the reports of the New York State 
Agricultural Society, that the sales of the farmers in this 
department have been generally as high as Si 00 per acre. 
The famous Pelham orchard of Newtown pippin apples, 
upon the Hudson river, so skillfully cultivated by suitable 
rotation of manures as to be kept in bearing every year, 
has yielded annually several hundred dollars to the acre ; 
and although Mr. Pell has had numerous competitors, still 
the price of his apples rose steadily in the London mar- 
ket from nine to over twenty dollars per barrel. His gross 
sales from 2000 bearing trees, by recent report, amounts 
340,000 per annum. I could refer to many other orchard- 
ists at the North, whose profits have been as large, but 
deem it unnecessary. These results show how valuable 
a return from the land the orchard is capable of producing 
when science is called into requisition in the culture of 
the trees, and when painstaking is hud in gathering and 
shipping the fruit. It also shows how readily the planter 
in the South (in many localities) may be able to add other 
sources to his income in addition to his cotton crop. The 
Northern farmer puts one part of his land in grass, anoth- 
er part in oats, another in wheat, corn, potatoes, Oc.c.,and 
these crops maturing in succession, guard him against the 
heavy loss he might otherwise incur from disease, insects 
or drouth, incase he confined him.self to the culture of a 
single staple. 
I will now refer to some statistics of importance in con- 
nection with this subject ; 
Ihe late Mr. Downing, in the second volume of the 
H'lrticnllv.ri.^t, estimates from data furnisiied in the patent 
office reports of Mr. Burke, that the value of the horticul- 
tural products of the entire Union amounts to over S450,- 
000,000. That its products are more than half as great as 
those strictly agricultural ; almost as large as the whoie 
inanuflicturing products of the country; and half as large 
as the manufacturing and all other interests, excepting the 
agricultural, coisbined. 
In connection with the industrial resources of our coun- 
try, so vast a source of wealth is just cause for national 
pride — our products from the garden, the orchard and the 
nursery far exceeding in value those of any other country. 
France alone approximates near to rivalshijj with us. 1 
