ANNUAL MEETING 



OF 



MAINE STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Portland, November 14-16, 1916. 



TUESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER I4. 



Prayer. 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 

 Hon Wilford G. Chapman, Mayor of Portland. 

 Mr. President and Friends of the Pomological Society: 



There hangs across Congress Street, in front of the City 

 Hall where we now are, a banner of the Chamber of Commerce, 

 having upon it the word, Welcome, and the name of your 

 Society. In behalf of the people of Portland, I repeat and 

 emphasize that welcome this year and every year, as often as 

 you care to visit the city. 



In ancient times it was customary to celebrate the harvest 

 festival and the vintage festival by appropriate rights and cere- 

 monies. If you should read in history that the people of a cer- 

 tain city, which was the principal city of the state or country 

 in which it was situated, made a festival and invited to it the 

 people from the surrounding country, and that the people who 

 came to visit the city brought with them choice offerings and 

 exhibits of fruits and flowers, which were taken into the beauti- 

 fully decorated and brilliantly lighted festival hall of the city ; 

 and that the town merchants and principal men of the city gave 

 prizes to the people bringing in the fruits and flowers, and 

 decorated them with purple ribbons, inscribed with letters of 

 gold, you would surely say that there must be some reason why 

 these people from outside the city were thus honored and 



