Mr. Downing - How strange it is, that after all the preaching you and I, and other sensible men, have done, no more attention is paid in New-England to raising fruit, as a regular source of profit! An instance of Yankee shrewdness has recently come to my knowledge, which well illustrates the advantages of knowing something on this subject. In the spring of 1846, a Mr. W. was engaged in grafting apple trees, in various parts of Rockingham county, and with the rest, grafted enough to amount to about twelve dollars, for Mr. R., of Brentwood, upon an old orchard of natural fruit, consisting of about one hundred trees. Mr. R. thought it rather extravagant to expend so much in an experiment so hopeless, and W. finally proposed that he would go on in subsequent years, and graft as many of the old trees as he chose, do the necessary pruning, and receive for his pay one half the fruit that should grow on his grafts during the next twelve years, and R. should cultivate the land among them, for his own profit. This was considered a very liberal proposition, and at once accepted, and the contract was reduced to writing, and executed.

I happened to beat Brentwood during the past autumn, just after W. had called for his share of the fruit, and learned that the scions set in 1846, for setting which, he had charged twelve dollars, produced sixteen barrels of marketable Baldwin Apples, worth twenty-four dollars. Mr. R. had become so for convinced of his mistake, that he offered W. one hundred dollars to release his interest in the orchard, which W. promptly declined. I soon afterwards met W., and conversed with him on the subject, and he said that so far from releasing his interest in the contract, for that sum, he would not sell his share of the fruit for om y;ar, for that amount, and allow the purchaser to choose it out of the term.

He has now grafted most of the trees with the Baldwin Apple, and thinks he shall get more than a hundred dollars a year, in each of the even years of the last half of his term. The even year is, as you well know, the bearing year for the Baldwin, throughout New-England. Mr. W. further informs me, that he has made many similar contracts in the neighborhood, and has acquired an interest in about one thousand.trees; that his share of apples, grown on land of other people, the past full, was ninety barrels, and that none of the scions which produced it were set prior to 1845. He grafted one tree in 1845, which produced in 1850, six barrels of fruit, and that he knows fifty trees which this year produced ten barrels each, worth in all, $750.

Now, there are scattered all over New-England, orchards, of natural fruit, which is either fed to swine, or made into cider. As food for swine, sour apples are a little better than nothing. I have given hundreds of bushels to my swine, which seemed to find at least a rational amusement in eating them. Indeed, for store pigs, they do tolerably well, but for fattening animals, I should adopt the principle laid down in the good woman's receipt for making sawdust bread, "the less sawdust, the better the bread." Sweet apples are worth, perhaps, one-sixth as much per bushel, as food for animals, as Indian corn, and this will just about pay for gathering them.

As to cider, we estimate that eight bushels of apples, will make one barrel of cider, worth one dollar and fifty cents, which will not pay a man who has any thing else to do, for his labor in making it, if you give him the fruit on the trees. The natural fruit, then, is of no value, and the facts before stated, show how readily the useless trees which produce it, may be made valuable.

But it may be said, that great attention has already been given to this subject, and that vast quantities of apples are already produced in New-England. Let us see how this matter is. By the census tables of 1840, it appears that the "products of orchards in New-Hampshire, was greater, in proportion to its population, than that of any other New-England state, except Connecticut, and nearly equal to the product of that state; and that Chester, in Rockingham county, gave a larger product than any other town, (by which your southern readers must understand township,) in the state, with one exception. Now, I happen to know all about that good old town, for there I was born and bred, and taught to plant trees, and love them too; and although, with a population of only 1,300, it stands almost first as a fruit grower, it will be seen that its product is trifling, compared with what it might and should be. A citizen of that place, whose business calls him into all parts of the town, and who personally gave me the results of his inquiries, has carefully taken an account of the marketable winter apples produced there, in the present year, 1850, noting the name of the producer, and the kind and quantity of fruit raised by each.

He has taken an account of a little more than ten thousand bushels, equal to four thousand barrels, of which nine-tenths are of the Baldwin Apple. The Baldwin bore bountifully this year, throughout this state, while other varieties bore but little. I think the whole crop this year is not much, if any, over the average of other years. One further fact will enable me fairly to present my view, and that is, that one single orchard, in the town referred to, covering only two acres of land, produces annually, on an average, eight hundred bushels of first rate winter apples, equal to about one-twelfth of the whole product of one of our best fruit growing towns; so that it seems that twenty-five acres of well cultivated trees, might produce as much as that whole township, of some 25,000 acres, now produces, and yet their crops of this year would give to each man, woman, and child of the town, about twenty bushels of winter apples.

A comparison of the facts I have stated, will give some idea of the adaptation of our soil to the culture of the apple, and I think, clearly show that we have as yet, made but a beginning in this branch of cultivation. I suppose that any land in New-Hampshire, except an occasional dry, sandy, pine-plain, which will yield thirty bushels of Indian corn to the acre, may, with the same annual labor and manuring, produce three hundred bushels of winter apples, of the best quality, worth almost as much per bushel as the corn. Most of us are ready to admit, that corn at the north, cannot be raised with profit. We are losing all confidence in the potato crop, and our manufacturers are sagely shaking their heads, and saying that New-Englanders must leave agriculture to the west and south, and "devote their behavior" to cotton-mills and the mechanic arts. Now I believe, sir, that the cultivation of the apple alone, may be made a source of more profit to New-England, in twenty-five years, than all her present manufactures; and I trust the day is far distant, when the sturdy sons of the Puritans will leave their fair fields, on the mountain sides, and in the river valleys, and grow pale and degenerate in the pent-up factories and workshops.

No portion of the world is better, and I think none so well, adapted to this fruit, as New-England. Our Baldwin Apple is in perfection about the middle of January, and our Russets are in eating until June. Indeed, we often see the old year's fruit of our orchards, Bide by side with that of the new year. So, after the apples of more southern orchards have decayed, we have the market to ourselves. Steam navigation renders exportation to the whole world, easy for us, and the home consumption, as well as foreign, must increase beyond the supply, for a generation to come, at least.

But I did not propose to write an essay, only to say enough to attract more attention to the old trees, which are impatiently waiting to be grafted, and to prompt to the planting of new orchards.

Like the "Ancient Mariner," I am very apt, when I get upon my favorite subject, to hold on to my auditor till he is tired of me. I have read the Horticulturist from its commencement, and think the "Granite State" has not contributed its fair proportion to your columns. If no better hand should offer, perhaps, in future numbers, I may be able sometimes to remind your readers, that we are not so far north, but that our trees blossom, and give fruit and shade in summer, and our ink may be thawed by a good fire in winter. I have concluded that one need not refrain from writing for a publication because he may not know quite so much as the editor. Many seem, as a matter of course, to disbelieve in all new theories in agriculture, as if Adam, and his graceless son, Cain, had exhausted the whole subject, and transmitted their knowledge, with other fruits of the forbidden tree, to all their posterity alike. Upon them, an impression may be made, by repeating good advice until its novelty is wore off, and it comes to have some respeect because of its antiquity.

Others seem to listen and comprehend, but never to profit by good teachings. The good seed of the sower, seems to fall upon a kind of ground not named in the parable, a swampy soil, perhaps, where it neither vegetates nor perishes. Now this class is not entirely hopeless. The general tone of their ideas is gradually elevated. They are like the good woman who went to church every Sunday, without being able to recollect a word of the sermon. She said, that in bleaching her cloth on the grass, she sprinkled it day after day, with water, and it grew whiter and whiter, but not a drop of water remained upon it! and she supposed the preaching affected her in the same way!

An amusing instance of inattention of this sort, came to my notice last last spring.

A neighbor of mine gravely announced to me one bright morning, that he believed that some sort of a bug was biting his plums, and described the crescent shaped bite of the curculio! Upon my explanation of the matter, he said he had often heard and read of such creatures, but seemed utterly amazed that an insect with such a scientific name, should come into the enclosure of a plain, honest farmer, like himself. He evidently had an idea that the curculio was of the humbug species, and belonged exclusively to book farmers. He pursued the subject very earnestly, however, and a few days after announced that he had succeeded in capturing one of the enemy, and produced him to his admiring family and friends, in the shape of a dor-bag! The best advice to such people is, to subscribe for the Horticulturist. Yours truly, Henry F. French.

[Our correspondent is right in saying that New-Hampshire has not hitherto been duly represented in our columns. As we recognize in him, a correspondent of the right stamp, we bid him welcome, and shall hope to have more of such pithy matter from the Granite State, frequently. Ed.]