134 John Minto. lynx, and the small wolf or coyote, as cunning as the fox (aJso abounding) and bolder. Then birds of prey from the sparrow- hawk to the eagle. Enemies to the successful keeping of do- mestic fowls, sheep, pigs, calves or colts were so numerous that when we got a start of sheep in 1849, my wife, spinning wool on our cabin porch, kept the loaded rifle within her reach— in the use of which I had given her lessons on the day succeeding our marriage. Thinking back to those early days, it seems as though there must have been a reciprocal spirit of fruitfulness and peace between the soil and its cultivators. Especially did this seem so with fruits; I had planted a small apple orchard of two- year-old seedlings in 1850. In returning from the United States Land Office in 1851, where I had proved my right to a donation of 640 acres for myself and wife, in proof of which Survey or- General Preston thought it his duty to send the cer- tificate of declaration of intention of citizenship made in Washington County, Pennsylvania, to Washington, I was so delayed on my way home that I appealed to Alfred A. Stan- ton, whose acquaintance I had already made, for a night's entertainment— a boon freely granted— by which, in addition to forming a life-long friendship with the united heads of my ideal American farm home, I learned from Mr. Stanton, who had charge of a branch of the fruit nursery of Luelling and Meek, how to set a side graft. I purchased trees of different varieties of fruits, after a close study of Johnson's Diction- ary of Gardening," Americanized by D. Landreth, of Phila- delphia, grafting with all available young wood from trees so purchased. In some cases I had specimens the first year from the graft. I cannot express the measure of delight my beginnings in pomology gave me. I learned of the kinship of certain trees; for instance, the hawthorn, service, quince and mountain ash to the pear, and on my own low ground transplanted strong, thrifty black haw, and head-grafted with pound pear. Fall Butter, and other pears, and was using the first mentioned baked as a table dish before some of my neighbors had ob-
