Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1860-06-09
.57n vveEANp AND FRUIT RAISING,


.hv verv common to those who have left |
New England to settle on the rich prairie lands
of tbe west. The sell Of the western prairies
is not favorable to fruit raising 1t is not the
sail in which apple trees and pear trees thrive,
and therefore, all attempts to do a successful
business at fruit raising, in Minnesota, Wis
consn, Illinois, and Iowa, have failed. A dill
gent hunt might find in some of these states
few payches of soil in which apple and pear
trees would grow well; but these would be ex-
reptions to the general rule. The Minnesota
News says;-"Many attempts have been made
to grow apple trees in this state, but with very
indifferent success. -Four years ago, at the
Hennepin county fair, in Minneapolis, four
small specimens were exhibited, for which a
premium of ten dollars was awarded. They
were raised, if we remember Alright, by Rev.
Mr. Pond, in the Minnesota valley. A large
proportion of the young trees planted have
persisted, and our amateur orchardists have
been much discouraged"
But the News, still hoping on, mentions that
an experienced nurseryman, from Rochester,
New York, is about to try his skill at fruit
culture, on soil near the Falls of St. Anthony,
and that he has an "undoubting conviction"
of success. Others have tried and failed be-
fore him. He will fail; and other failures
will come after his ; for the difficulty is more
in the nature of the SOIL than anywhere else.
Generally, the soil of the western prairies re-
sembles the black mud of our New England
swamps. Our farmers sometimes drain rich
swamp or bog, and make it dry enough for
cultivation and from such spots of carefully
drained soil, they can secure great harvests OF
certain crops but they never dream of plant
ing orchards in such soil. For orchards, we
go to fields and side hills, where the soil is
lighter-colored, and has in it more gravel i'll a
word, where it is most unlike the swamps and
the prairics. In Minnesota, the prairie soil
has mixture of sand, which, i'll general
cultivation, gives it some advantages over
that where there is no sand, keeping
it from presenting such oceans of mud
as may sometimes be seen lower down
the Mississippi valley, and starting vegetation
more rapidly, in the spring. But this mixture
of sand does nothing to improve lis capacity for
wheat, which, as general thing, does not sue.
coed on the prairies.
1t appears to us that the farmers of New
England may learn something useful by con
siderng this matter carefully. Ever since
there began an emgation from New England
to the magnificent prairies of the upper Mississ
ippi region it has been the fashion to under
A. IL
land, and to talk as if successful farming were
impossible anywhere away from those prairies
But there is a mistake in such representations.
Our soil may be rugged, but it will very read
lily produce some things which cannot be
grown successfully on the prairies. We can
not have here such fields of corn and spring
wheat as they have in Illinois, nor such fields
of grass as they will have there, when they
shall turn from the wild growth of the prairies
to the cultivation of grasses. But they, on
the other hand, cannot have such apple and
pear orchards as may be grown here. We
cannot match the grain growing capacities of
their soil, but we may excel them in the bust
ness of raising most kinds of fruit; and this
factindicates the policy that should be adopted
by our farmers, if they would have their bust
ness become less toilsome and more profitable
They should plant orchards.
Those flour small specimens" OF apples, for
which premium of ten dollars was paid, at
the Hennepin county fair, Minnesota four
years ago, are very suggestive. They show
one important want OF the west, which its own
soil cannot supply. Ere long, the inhabitants
OF the upper Mississippi valley will be counted
by the million, and it will become an impor
tant part of the farming business of the eastern
and middle states TO supply them with apples.
If every available rood of land in New Eng
land were planted to apple trees of the hardest
and most useful kinds, there would be a ready
and eager market for all the fruit they would
produce and the demand of this market will
grow every year Therefore plant orchards
set out apple trees understand that on our SOIL
as a general thing, we'll tended orchards will
be far more profitable than corn-felds and,
after a few years, farming here at the east will
become quite as profitable, and certainly qnite
as agreeable, as in any part of the country.
On New England farm, where the old, Ste
reotyed methods of culture are continued the
hardest and most irksome toll of every sea.
son, is planting and hoeng corn. More work
is done here on one acre Of corn, than ON
twenty acres on the praries; and this fact
shows plainly that the old routine should be
changed, and that our soil should be mt 10
other uses.
If apple and pear orchards could be made
to produce full crops, the next autumn after
planting, we should see more of them planted.
1t is the lack of an immediate return for the
labor and expense that holds back so many
from preparing such orchards. 1t seems to
them that they have not time to work for dis
tant results, and SO they go on, planting and
hoeing corn in the old way, as diligently as if
that gran-growing prairie world, at the west,
were as little known and used now, as it was
seventy years ago. Some day. this will be
different; our New England soil will be used
with juster appreciation of its real capabili-
ties and its comparative value; and then we
shall have great deal more fruit culture, with
many other improvements in our system of
agriculture.
Political.
Hon. Cyrus Aldrieh, one of the members of
Conurase from Minnacota ;e rooo;y,n,, tl,o