state; pomological society. 113 



his short years of schooling, he lives through the whole history 

 of the human race. If each one of us had to start at the begin- 

 ning and learn by experiment, as some of our earlier ancestors 

 did, we never should arrive at any great result more than they, 

 but we start with the product of all previous ages. The gen- 

 eration that comes after us will have these things to begin with, 

 and it is our duty to leave to the coming generation the best 

 possible legacy of all of the combined work and effort in every 

 possible line. It has never been my privilege before to address 

 an association devoted to this kind of work, but I hope it will 

 be my privilege again provided you don't dislike to hear me, 

 because I want to work in this line myself. I have had my per- 

 ceptions made more acute, my interest has greatly increased 

 since I have had charge of an institution which has an agricul- 

 tural department to it. I think there is nothing more inspiring 

 than coming directly in contact with nature, and you cannot do 

 that in any of the other occupations in life as you can in farming 

 in its various branches. To be sure a great deal of the wealth 

 of this nation and of other nations has been made in what we 

 call other lines, that is, manufactures, manufacturing products 

 that have grown out of the soil or been dug from the soil, but 

 after ali, however much money may have been made in those 

 lines, however great the development may have been in those 

 lines and in the line of machinery, and so on, every one of us 

 has to come back to the earth for our supply of food, and if we 

 lose our interest in that and if we lose our skill in that, and if we 

 do not try to make erery bit of possible progress in that line, 

 the world will come to naught in spite of all its advances in 

 other lines. Let us do just what Dr. Twitchell has suggested, 

 advocate the value of the State of Maine as an agricultural state. 

 We know it is a state for lumber. Everybody knows that. It 

 is put down in the geographies. My children came home the 

 other day — one of the most remarkable things that they had 

 discovered, that the Penobscot river was most noted for the 

 lumber produced along its banks. They hadn't heard that 

 before, but they read that in the geography. Let us put in the 

 geography that it is an agricultural state, and let us put in every 

 book and paper where we are advertising ourselves that this is 

 an agricultural state, because we know it is. We haven't 500,000 

 square miles of land such as we have in Illinois ; that don't make 



