As he drew near the foot of Navy Island, intending to take the chute between it and Buckhorn Island, two large cakes between which he was sailing suddenly closed together and cut the bottom of his skiff square off. Just above the cake on which his bottomless skiff was then floating there was a second large cake, at a little distance from it, and beyond this a strip of water which washed the shore of Navy Island. In less time than it has taken to write this, he sprang upon the first piece of ice, ran across it with desperate speed, cleared the first space of water at a single leap, ran across the next cake of ice, jumped with all his might, and landed in the icy water within a rod of the shore, to which he swam. He was soon after warming and drying himself before the rousing fire of the only occupant of the island. His father had a fine farm on the bank of the river, which he cultivated with much care. But before the drainage of the country was completed the land was decidedly wet. A friend from the East who made him a call found him plowing. The water stood in the bottom of the furrows. But agriculture has been progressive since those days. It is now almost a fine art instead of a mere pursuit. And nowhere north of the equator is there a climate and soil so genial and favorable for the growth of certain kinds of fruit, especially the apple and the peach, as are those of Niagara County. Many persons claim that they can tell from the peculiar consistency of the pulp, and by its flavor and _bouquet_, on which side of the Genesee River an apple is grown. It is said that the winter apples of Niagara are as well known and as greatly prized above all others of their kind on the docks of Liverpool, as is Sea Island cotton above all other grades of that plant. The delicious little russet known as the _Pomme Gris_, with its fine aromatic flavor when ripe, grows nowhere else to such perfection as along the Niagara River. In 1825, at the grand celebration held to commemorate the completion of the Erie Canal, the late Judge Porter made the first shipment east of apples raised in Niagara County. It consisted of two barrels, one of which was sent to the corporation of the city of Troy, and the other to that of New York. They were duly received and honored. From this small beginning the fruit trade has grown to the yearly value of more than a million of dollars for Niagara County alone.