ENPages
Princeton Feb. 4 1856 [two checkmarks]
Doc. A. Kennicott
Dear Friend
I hae heard nothing from you for a long time; but I think you wrote last, so I cannot com= plain. The Plum trees you sent arrived in good order. There was also a bundle of peach trees, 21 I think; - and as I suppose through mistake, not included in the bill. I sold 5000 apple trees in the fall to one man, a nursery man from Lee Co. and have 4000 more contracted for the spring, of which Phoenix takes 1000, and a man in Will Co 3000. How much the competition spring= up around me will interfere with my home sales, I know not. Phoenix was here lately fully of wrath against eastern tree pedlers, eastern agents, and the folly of those who buy of them. I did not know till then that Ellwanger & Barry had established a branch nursery at Columbus.
This is probably but the first step westward. Are we little stars to hide our dimin ished heads and be utterly extinguished by these mammoth establishments? I heard Barry say at Burlington that ere long sales of tree would be effected principally by agencies He must doubtless expect that all the smaller nurseries will be crushed, and the whole business transacted by a few large establishments.
The winter has been dreadfully severe for some weeks; but of that you are of course as well aware as myself. The cold has I think made a general destruction of peach trees. Apricot trees are also dead. how much more damage may be done I cannot tell. Apple and other fruit trees are more extensively injured by the splitting of their trunks than I ever before knew.
Do you know when the proceedings of the Burlington meeting are to
be published? I am almost getting im= patient, about it. They will I suppose make quite a book. By the way have[strikethrough] if you have a copy of the State Agricultural Transactions that you know not how to dispose of, I would like to have it; - but if you have any other way of disposal do not alter on my account.
Yours truly Arthur Bryant