Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1888-05-04
Fruits and Fruit Growing in Aroostook
County.

To the Editor Of the Keane5ec Journal;
Fruit trees seem TO have wintered well
here. The past winter has been very favor
able for them. The snow has not been very
deep nor the cold very intense. The winter
of 1861 was the coolest, with the deepest
snow of any year that have ever seen here
and | have been here 81 winters. Yet the
trees came out last spring in good condition,
with the exception of some limbs, split off by
the weight of snow. / see that T.. W.
Merritt in agriculture of Name" 1886,
still persists that, at is of no use
for any one to think of raising an
orchard above this line (Bridgewater) ,
except of few early aud fall apples and
these only in isolated localities" | am sorry
tie see such statement in print, as hundreds
of the farmers of northern Aroostook know
that it is an error, and that it is liable to in
lure this section of the State. At the farm
ers' institute at Pressure Isle last fall ex-
hibited seven varieties of apples, which 4. A.
Gilbert assured me were as good specimens
of those varieties he had seen grown any
where in the State. He also told me that
when he heard that the Duchess of Alden
burg would thrive well here, he knew that
the fruit question was valued, for this
section. because the Duchess is not
the hardest apple tree in the
world. r. II. iloskins in the United
States agricultural report for 1886 SAYS:
AS soon as he had solved the problem of
apple culture for Northern Vermont, his
thoughts turned to the vast and fertile Aroos-
took region, covering an arabic territory as
large as the whole of Vermont Even the
southern boundary of that section is 100
miles north of the north line of Vermont,
but its much less altitude Scarcely anywhere
more than 800 feet above the sea- and its
proximity to the ocean prevent the winters
cold from being greater there than here"
Il have visited Aroostook and taken part in
the discussions in the agricultural meetings
IN the subject of orchard culture. In this
way | have become somewhat acquainted
with the resources of thiT, b. far the finest
as well as the most extensive agricultural
region of New England. For dairy, stock,
and fruit farming, Aroostook is inferior to
Western New York and Ohio only in its
colder winter temperature. 1t is now being
settled with considerable rapidity, and every
where the planting of orchards of ironclad
apples keeps pace with the opening of farms"
Now while we don't claim that we can
raise the tender varieties of apples, we do
claim that we can and do raise such kinds as
Duchess, Wealthy, Setofsky, Alexander,
thing in our favor is that the same varieties
raised here will keep longer than the same
kinds raised further South.
The Duchess is late fall apple,
and | kept Wealthys this year until
the middle of April. From six barrels of
Duchess last fall picked two bushels, each
apple of which would weigh from l-2 to 9
ozs. The lot averaged half pound each.
In the fall of 1sS5-o6 | bought at the State
Fair at Lewiston seven or eight barrels of
apples each year from the show tables after
the fair closed. Fruit that was raised in half
dozen different counties, and in no case did
| get better specimens than were exhibited
at Presque Isle last fall, of such kinds as we
can raise here. We have great hopes of
seedlings which are being raised here.
j. W. Dudley, of Castle Hill,
some ten or twelve years ago planted
the seed from Duchess apple
from which he has raised seven seedlings,
all hardy, whose season is all the way from
September to May. The most promising
one Dudleys he winters and has sold all the
scions from, for the term of three years, to
the Chase Bros, Rochester, n. Y, for
enough to buy quite farm. 1t is very
large handsome apple, of good quality,
harder than the Duchess, season, winter,
| think that the sure crop of snow here
can be utilized in raising the tender va
rieties of apples, in some such way as Mr.
Sharpe of Woodstock, \, B. is doing with
plums. Perhaps instead of bending the
whole tree down as he does with his plum
trees, we could train the tender varieties low
and fsten the lower limbs down at the
approach of cold weather.
While the Sops -of-W Wine is raised here, it
l. ri pa,st Of Maplatnp has
tree of this variety that during the deep
with snow. The result was that last fall he
had some as fine Sops-of- Wine apples rs one
often sees. Small fruits thrive wonderfully
here few DAYS since a man from Massa-
chusetts bought the common wild raspberries
at Fort Fairfield, Caribou and Presque Isle.
The frs, year he got 95 tons AMI the next year
over 100 tons.
About the matter of inter- temperature
here. All of the villages a e located on tie
streams, N the valleys. That is not
where the apple trees are, yet the
temperature is reported at the villages.
have hal a thermometer twenty years, and
Is deg. F. is the lowest point it has reached
in that time. As proof that apples can be
ra sed in Northern Aroostook woul1 refer
to the following gentleman, not one of whom,
as far as know, is interested in selling fruit
trees: A. NJ. Dudley, L. II. Tilley, Castle
Hill; A. 7. Mooers, Ashland; Edward
Wiggin Mavsvile Centre S. W. Reed,
Westfeld Jam $ Nu,ting Perham; II. H.
Cook, Presque lsle f. WINSTON, Mapleton
and hundreds of others if their names are
needed. E. FAIR,
Castle Hill, Aroostook Co.