24 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



culture and the labors of the husbandman. You will find no 

 indication of great wealth, for we do not have it; nor will you 

 find great poverty, for we are happily exempt from it. We show 

 you a typical agricultural town, with its schools, its libraries and 

 its churches ; its neat homes and convenient business establish- 

 ments ; and believe we illustrate that if farming does not "pay," 

 to use the usual formula, yet a community, whose chief industry 

 is tilling the soil, may be intelligent, prosperous and happy. 



Today, when the measure of success is gauged by dollars, 

 when the captains of industry are regarded as those who forge 

 iron, weave textiles or dig coal, it may be well to consider 

 whether the man who obeys the divine injunction given to our 

 first father, when put upon the earth, to dress it and keep it, is 

 not worthy of honor, and whether, after all, the old idea of com- 

 fort and happiness may not be true — namely, "to sit under one's 

 own vine and fig tree." 



Again, gentlemen, I welcome you, and trust that this visit of 

 Pomona to Ceres may be agreeable and profitable. 



RESPONSE TO ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 



By R. H. Libbey, of Newport. 

 From the very fact of our invitation to meet in Farmington 

 to exhibit, we knew that we should be welcome; and we knew 

 ic later, when we arrived, by the warm shake of the hand and 

 the individual interest that the people of Farmington took in us 

 in escorting us to the best houses in town. These were further 

 evidences of our welcome to the town of Farmington, as was 

 also our reception at our secretary's, in his spacious rooms in 

 which the best citizens of Farmington were collected. And 

 then, when we came to meet the good citizens of Farmington 

 in the hall, we had still further evidences of welcome. It is 

 unnecessary to take up time in saying that we appreciate it, and 

 in behalf of the Maine State Pomological Society, I thank the 

 citizens for their cordial welcome and for the kindly efforts they 

 lhave made to receive us. 



