8 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



entertained and decorated by the people of the city. You would 

 probably conclude that it was because the people in the city 

 appreciated the work and skill of the people of the country in 

 raising fine fruits and beautiful flowers which they brought in ; 

 you would conclude that the people of the city were supplied 

 with fruit and other produce of the land which was cultivated 

 by the visitors whom they thus honored. And if you should 

 read further, and learn that the land of the state where the fine 

 fruit was raised was the finest fruit-raising land in the world, 

 you would doubtless conclude that the people of the city did 

 wisely in thus encouraging the raising of the fine fruit and 

 other produce of the farm; but if you should read further and 

 find that the people of the city were not supplied with the fruit 

 and produce of the land, raised in their own state, but that the 

 people who raised this produce sent it to far distant cities, like 

 Boston and New York; that the people of the city where the 

 festival was held, bought from a far country known as Oregon, 

 the fruit consumed in the city, you would be much surprised 

 and wonder why they did business in such an expensive manner. 



Mr. President, I submit that the fanciful picture that I have 

 drawn shows exactly what is being done in our own city and 

 state at the present time. The time was when the various cities 

 and towns of this state were supplied with the farm products 

 and produce raised upon the neighboring farms, but at the 

 present time it is not so. Fruit and farm produce raised in 

 Maine is shipped to Boston and New York merchants and the 

 Maine merchants are supplied from out of the city and state. 

 Portland merchants, in particular, are very largely supplied 

 from Boston. Somebody pays the extra cost of transportation 

 and it must come out of the farmer in the way of less profit, or 

 out of the consumer in higher cost. 



It is the purpose, as I understand it, of the far-sighted busi- 

 ness men of Portland and of your Society, to change these 

 unfortunate conditions and to bring about a cooperation be- 

 tween the men of the city who consume and the men of th*^ 

 country who produce — the work of each must be useless with- 

 out the other. It is wise, therefore, to meet together and dis- 

 cuss these questions. Maine has suffered much in the past 

 from the emigration of its people to other states. The tide is 

 beginning to turn the other way and, during the last census 



