The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-12-23
FRUIT CULTURE.
J. H. Hale Tells What Connecticut Can
 Do

Do.
 At the farmers convention at Hart ford J. H. Hale of Glastonbury, Con- necticut's leading fruit authority, gave an address on Connecticut Fruit Cult ure. He said, in part:
 From the very earliest settlement of Connecticut fruit culture had received marked attention. The oldest apple tree in America is an English Blue Pearmain planted about 1850 and still producing some fruit in the town of 1 Wethersfield and the very earliest set tiers were troubled with insect fungus, as evinced by letter written by George Fenwick of Saybrook, to Cover nor Winthrop of Massachusetts, in trees you sent me, for which I heartily thank you. If I had anything heafe | that could pleasure VOW, vow should freely command it. I am prettie well stored with cherrie & peach trees & did hope l had had good nurserie of aples, of the aples VOW sent me last | yeare, but the wormes have in a man. ner distroyed them all as they came up. I pray informe me if VOW know anyway to prevent like mischiefe for the future"
 Fruit cultivation for market has been mostly developed within the last fifty years, with the increased growth of towns and cities, but the increase in | fruit consumption the last ten or fifteen years was all out of proportion to tue increase of population. Instead of being used as a luxury, fruit had now become staple food product in a great many 1 homes. Thirty years ago Hartford con- sumed less than ten bushels of straw 1 berries a day in the height of the June season. while now the consumption is upwards of 1,200 bushels per day, all though the population has not doubled | in this time.
 | tasty display of fruit had much to do with it's sale on the market The in- | fluence of horticultural societies and cultivation and refinement of the people had made Boston the best fruit market in America. Hartford, with number of progressive dealers, who had always known how to display their fruit well and buy only the best, consumes twice as much fruit daily as the neighboring city of New Haven with greater popu- lation, but whose dealers have less ap- . pISClcllOl Ol llllt II ut anu US ulSDlaY. 1 In proportion to it's size, Connecticut at the present time is producing more fine fruits and in greates variety than any other state in the union, with the exception of the apple, which is as yet sadly neglected and yet, where proper 1 ly cultivated and frequently sprayed to i keep down fungus and insect pests. many of the choicest Varieties could be produced in this state in greater per- lection than in any other of the so-
 called apple states
 In relation to the new chestnut cuI i ture, MT. Hale said that in Pennsylva-
 na this last season in many of the l chestnut orchards that had been creat- 1 ed by grating over sprout land six or i seven years ago with the new improved
 varieties there had been yields of nuts, which gave a net profit this single sea- i son ten times greater than The value of
 the land itsef. A considerable graft
 ing of sprout land had already been ! begun in Connecticut, and he believed
 in the near future Japanese chestnuts would be quite a feature of Connecti-
 cut orchards. They may be grown eith-
 CT by planting the nursery trees or | from these cutting scions and grating the small sprouts that come up where
 chestnut timber has been cut away.
 In reply to questions MT. Hale said that whip and splice grating rather
 late in the season was most successful. Keep plenty of good, healthy foliage on 1 trees and plants if you want them
 hardy Annual thinning off apples in- ! duces annual foliage The liberal use
 of potash improves the color and quali- ] ty of the fruit.