Massachusetts History

NANTUCKET, Massachusetts 1856

From the Report of the Committee on Fruit.

The committee on fruit for the first exhibition of the Nantucket Agricultural society, have attended to the duty assigned them, and beg leave to report :

When we consider how very recently the opinion has taken root, that fruit can be successfully grown on Nantucket, we would express our surprise and pleasure at the display made on this occasion. It affords to our minds ample proof that the efforts made have been rewarded with good success, and offers sufficient encouragement to stimulate us and others to persevere in the pleasing and useful task. One hundred plates and baskets of fruit graced the tables of the exhibition, from thirty-six contributors.

Of pears, there was a good display. both in number and quality. Twenty-two varieties were shown.

James Thompson exhibited ten varieties, which your committee considered the best collection. Mr. Thompson’s specimens were are follows : Flemish Beauty, Beurre Diel, Beurre d’Aremberg, Duchesse d’Orleans, Seckel, White Doyenne, Soldat Laboureur, Osband’s Summer, Bon Chretien Fondante, Louise Bonne de Jersey.

Edward W. Gardner exhibited five varieties—White Doyenne, Jalousie de Fontenay Vendee, Colmar d’Aremberg, Duchesse d’ Orleans, and Vicar of Winkfield.

Of grapes there was a good display, although not so rich as it might have been had the vines on the Island been fully represented. We hope more attention will be given to the cultivation of this wholesome fruit, of which Professor Salisbury says, ” the free use of ripe grapes (and apples) not only prevents disease, but their regulated enjoyment helps to remove that which already exists. They are superior to the potato in the principles that go to increase the muscle and the brain of man.”

Of quinces the collection was good. Of apples but few were exhibited. Edward W. Gardner offered specimens of Rhode Island greenings, that were very large and handsome.

The committee noticed among the fruit some dishes of strawberry tomatoes, and a jar of pickled strawberry tomatoes, exhibited by Mrs. E. P. Fearing. The fruit of the hickory treeshellbark nuts—was exhibited by Z. Coffin Macy, three kinds, from trees on his farm. The show of peaches was small.

The culture of fruit commends itself to all of us as a matter of taste, and as a means of obtaining what may be considered a luxury as well as an article of diet conducive to health. As a matter of taste, a fruit tree, with its foliage, blossoms and hanging fruit, in their successive seasons, is an ornament wherever seen, and may certainly be called ” a thing of beauty.” As an attainable luxury, it offers tempting inducements to persevering attention to the cultivation of such kinds and varieties as are best adapted to our soil, climate and situation. Fruit being a wholesome, palatable and nutritious article of food, needed for the preservation of health, and preventive of disease, its culture should be considered a subject of much importance, and worthy of all the investigation, labor and patience, required.

 J. B. KING, Chairman.