trees produced an apple crop as
far back as 1905 which brought the owner $10,000, another of fifty
twenty-year-old trees brought $700. Mr. H. E. Vandeman, one of the
best-known horticulturists in the country, says that there is not in
all North America a better place to plant orchards than in Virginia;
on account of its "rich apple soil, good flavor and keeping
qualities of the fruit, and nearness to the great markets of the
East and Europe."

The trees attain a fine size and live to a good old age, and produce
abundantly. In Patrick County there is a tree nine feet five inches
around which has borne 110 bushels of apples at a single crop; other
trees have borne even more. One farmer in Albemarle County has
received more than $15,000 for a single crop of Albemarle Pippins
grown on twenty acres of land. This pippin is considered the most
delicious apple in the world.

The fig, pomegranate, and other delicate fruits flourish in the
Tidewater region.

New England, from Maine to Rhode Island, is suffering from one
disease--lack of intelligent labor. Thirty years ago the sons and
daughters who, in the natural course of events, would have stayed to
cultivate the home acres, left to form a part of the westward throng
making for the level, untouched prairies of Illinois and Iowa.

The old folks have died or become incapacitated. New interests chain
their children to adopted homes. Result,--unoccupied lands by the
hundred thousand acres, awaiting energy, skill, and faith.

Ten dollars an acre is a common price for the rocky hills of New
England. The choice river bottoms, and land near the larger cities
is as high priced as similar land anywhere else. Intending settlers
can buy small areas for little money; usually the smallest farms
have good buildings worth in many cases more than the price asked
for the whole farm. Climatic conditions are not favorable to single
cropping. In the old days general farming, grain, beef, sheep, and
hogs were the rule; nowadays, special crops, dairying, fruit
growing, etc.

Tobacco is the great staple in the rich Connecticut River bottoms,
and even on the uplands, if properly manured, it pays from one to
three hundred dollars per acre. Tobacco can be raised on small areas
far from the railroad, as, when properly cured and packed for
shipment, it is not perishable. To many the worst feature of New
England is the climate--long, cold winters and short summers. Maine
being farthest north suff