Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1872-07-08
Written for the Monitor.
CROPS AND TREES IN RHODE
ISLAND.

In the different parts of the country,
the traveller judges of its .desirableness
by its products. These are its true
wealth and the handling of these pro-
ducts gives employment to the thousands
who dwell in cities and towns. Here
many acres are devoted to raising such
perishable products as require close at
tention and near market. [ think |
may safely say that hundreds of acres
are in onions. One man can only care
for about two acres. So much land
keeps him hoeing and pulling weeds all
summer, and when the price is about
dollar bushel, it pays him well, as the
yield is from 800 to 500 bushels per
acre. Much of the land is taken ON
shares, so the producer has only half.
Last year the prices were ruinously low,
from 60 cents in the fall to nothing in
the spring. Yesterday I saw one farm
er covering up 200 bushels with earth
to make compost heap, as they make
good manure. One year this man plowed
in lot of onions as manure for corn
and got good crop. Another farmer
has just put in two hundred bushels in
to his hog-pen to be worked over by
them during the summer. There, are
five varieties of onion product. ''Rare-
Ripes" are small onions of last years
growth set out this spring very early,
and sell in punches of a dozen, just
pulled and tied together-4O cents for
dozen punches. The land yields
two or three dollars per square rod.
Potato-onions are sold now in punches
like rare-ripes also sold when matured
by the bushel. Onions from sowing
seed occupy more land than all other
kinds combined. l see men working
among them barefooted these warm days.
They would be glad to contract them for
rs cents per bushel, and they have sold
as high as $500. Onion for seed is a
very ornamental crop-its white seed
balls on erect stalks and in straight
rows. | have seen but few acres of
these. ....-...
Green peas sell at 50 per bushel.
Some pull up the vines at the first pick
ing to prepare the ground for another
crop. Others pick twice. l saw a
small lot, June 26, where two men had
picked ~ bushels of Tom Thumb peas !;
about bushel to a square rod. Straw
berries are in their prime. They are
25 to 80 cts per box. Some have sew
eral acres. | may at some other time
give you the results of the crop which
is now being gathered. The season is
favorable to those whose vines were not
winter killed.
Out door grapes were badly killed last
winter, and the prospect is good for those
who are so fortunate as to have healthy
vines. Peaches are very doubtful
crop. Hundreds of dwarf peach trees
were sold from New York nurseries.
Most of those set three years ago are
dead, and very few or none appear
thrifty. Most of the peaches raised here
are ripe in October; few are earlier.
1t is safe to say they cannot be raised in
Vermont except under glass. Pears are
a favorite fruit. The insects do not in
jure the trees or fruit. Most every gar.
den has few pear trees. The best
kinds ripen the last of September. II
Bryant, at the Derby nursery will test
the varieties and find SOME that are re.
liable for northern Vermont and Canada
he will increase the obligation the PEG
pie are under to him for the zeal he hal
already shown in apple culture l hav,
seen several lots of dry dead pear tree:
that were set out in May or June of thi
year, and am told the trees were DIR,
when delivered here.
Ounce trees are very few. This is
of late maturing fruit, used almost en-
tirely for preserves. Nearly all the far
mers have given up trying to raise quinc
here.
Apple trees and orchards abound
trees from fifty to a hundred years old
yet they bear very little fruit thinl
an unproductive orchard is very poo
property; it occupies good ground AM
makes no return; it affords breeding
ground and pasturing for worms, cata
pillars, borer and other insects. Thes
old trees are allowed to stand, as
seems like striking an old friend, to Gu
down these old trees whose widespread
ing branches afford shade, and who's
strong trunks and tops break the fore
f of fierce winds, and add beauty to til
, Landscape. The land that has been o.
cupied by orchards in years past, doe
not do well in new orchards, but make
: very good gardens or fields for gener;
= culture. In looking over this list ,
fruit, | am more than ever impresse
a with the idea that it is extremely ha,
E ardous to buy vines and trees in We
r mont, that do poorly in milder climat
Apple trees of some varieties will Ii,
, in Vermont and possibly pears of a fe
5 varieties. Here they surrender the Gu
!, rant to the currant-worm, and the ca