Acadia s Crops 
Acadia's crop was a fragrant one at least, and 
if we could not at once appreciate three tons of 
hay to the acre, we were able to grasp the 
meaning of a hundred barrels of apples to the 
acre, which netted the farmer two dollars a 
barrel. That was better than raising oranges 
in Florida. We happened to know something 
about the latter occupation, and for a moment 
coveted Nova Scotia's orchards in exchange 
for certain groves whose golden hopes had 
never blossomed into realities. 
It was something of a comfort to know the 
Cornwallis Valley apple-trees require almost as 
much petting as Florida oranges, — that they 
are subject to disease and parasite and have to 
be scrubbed and scraped, and, for all we know 
to the contrary, sprayed occasionally. 
It had always seemed to us as though apple- 
trees happened, as though they grew by some 
special law of their own and asked nothing of 
man but room to stand in. But this is not so. 
If man wants fair apples, he must needs look 
to his trees. 
The apple-trees of Acadia are not the gnarled 
and delightful friends of our New England 
childhood. They have regular rounded crowns, 
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