716 [Assembly 
flourishing. In many sections of our country, it is the current 
opinion that particular localities are unfavorable to the growth of 
fruit trees, and this opinion has almost invariably arisen from the 
fact that orchards planted in these situations have not been thrifty 
and productive. Now there is a strong probability that, at least 
in many cases, those failures have been caused by the attacks of 
insects, and that these localities which are in such bad repute are 
in reality as well adapted for fruit culture as any others in their 
vicinity. The justness of these remarks will be evident from the 
following case : A lot at East Greenwich, Washington county, 
recently purchased by Dr. Henry K. McLean, had ten young 
apple trees standing upon it, which are about ten feet high. The 
bad condition of these trees was noticed by the doctor, when bar¬ 
gaining for the land, and he was told by the former owner that he 
must not expect fruit trees to do well thex-e, the soil and situation 
(a terraced flat of gravel, bordering upon Batten kill,) being 
unadapted to them. Other residents in the neighborhood reite¬ 
rated the same statement. The doctor, on inspecting the trees 
more closely, soon afterwards, discovered that they were badly 
infested with the borer, and going to work with his knife, he last 
spring dug out and destroyed from these ten trees, over sixty 
worms, as he assures me, although the statement is almost incredi¬ 
ble. Several of the trees were almost girdled, and would have 
been quite so in a short time. These trees now show for them¬ 
selves that during the past summer they have scarcely been 
equalled in the rapidity of their growth and their thrifty condi¬ 
tion, by any othei's in the counti'y. And it is thus rendered evi¬ 
dent that the gardens and yards of that neighborhood are well 
adapted for the cultivation at least of the apple tree, and that the 
bad repute in which they have heretofore been held has been 
wholly unmerited. 
Elmer Baldwin, Esq.,of Farm Ridge, La Salle county,Illinois, an 
intelligent fx uit culturist who has had much experience with 
some of the insects infesting our fruit trees, and to whom I am 
indebted for several interesting facts relating to this and other 
species, informs me, that he sat out fifty apple trees in the year 
1838, and in 1843 when they had grown to about three inches in 
