There was a vacant lot belonging to the Messrs. Jackson with two cellars, the remains of houses taken down long before my remembrance, and in the Jackson yard there was a Jackson apple tree, from which in season apples would fall upon a shed and roll into the vacant lot, and in recess there was a race to capture such apples as might have fallen during school hours. What has been the fate of the Jackson apple trees of my youth, and where have they gone? It was a red, juicy, early summer apple, a fit prize for the race, and where have the queen apple trees gone, only one of which is left in Plymouth. That in the yard of Wm. Rider Drew was cut down during the last year, leaving the one in the yard of Mrs. Lothrop, solitary and alone. And where are the June Eatings, a name corrupted into Jenitons, of which I think there is only one left in the yard of Miss Lydia Jackson in North street. And I must not forget those favorites with the boys, the button pears. Not especially prized by their owners we boys were permitted to take all we could find on the ground. With our trouser’s pockets bulging with the little fellows, we would find our way to school, little suspecting that we were paying dearly for them in the cost of a doctor’s visit, and a dose of picra. In the vacant lot above mentioned, the most conspicuous feature was a large sty in which Major Jackson kept his hogs. So far from such appurtenance being considered a nuisance in those days, a family without one or more hogs was an exception. In earlier times they were permitted to run at large, though not within my day in Plymouth, but it may surprise my younger readers to know that in New York and Washington, as late as the civil war, they roved about the streets as freely as dogs. As late as 1721 it was voted by the inhabitants of Plymouth that they might run at large that year if properly ringed and yoked, and hog constables were annually chosen to see that the condition was complied with. The custom of keeping hogs was so universal in my day that perhaps a dozen times during the season a dealer would buy in the Brighton market a drove of hogs and drive them home over the road, selling them on the way. When a sale was made the drivers would tie the four legs of the hog and raise it to a pair of steelyards, hanging from a bar supported by their shoulders, and thus find the weight. While this operation was going on the drove would roam at their own sweet will, nosing up the gutters and sidewalks in every direction. I remember James Ruggles of Rochester, the donor to the county of the fountain in front of the Court house, and Swift, one of the members of the firm of pork packers in Chicago, driving their hogs from house to house. Until a very recent date, more in deference to an old custom, than to any necessity, hog-reeves were chosen each year by the town, and recently married grooms were selected for the honor.