12 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



tends to the benefit of the State as a whole. So what we have 

 been doing in our Uttle work, or in our greater work upon the 

 hills and down the valleys of Maine, has been tending to the 

 good of the State of Maine as well. 



It was not necessary that- you should express your apprecia- 

 tion of our coming, it was not necessary that you should speak 

 the word of welcome, — you gave utterance to it in a very forci- 

 ble manner in the magnificent list of special prizes which you 

 offered to be distributed here among the fruit growers of the 

 State, showing your desire to help in a substantial manner, in 

 strengthening the desire for the growing of better fruit, for 

 the more thorough cultivation of our orchards, for the building 

 tip of an industry which in the years may become of transcend- 

 ent importance to this good old State of Maine. We are all 

 linked together. Whether we work upon the paved street, or 

 out upon the gravelly hills, — wherever we toil we are all work- 

 ing for one end and for one purpose, the building of a better 

 standard of manhood and womanhood and the carrying forward 

 of the industrial progress of the good old State of Maine. 



So, speaking for the State, for its orchard industry, let me 

 direct your attention for a moment to one or two little facts. 

 Maine has been peculiarly blessed this year. Of all the states 

 of the Union Maine ranks highest in the percentage of farm 

 crops. This is something we want to remember, friends, be- 

 cause it speaks not only of a blessing which has been bestowed 

 upon us, but it speaks also of the industry and thrift and energy 

 and skill and patient toil of the men and women upon the 

 farms and in the towns of the State. If I had time T would like 

 to speak of our varied industries, and I want just for a moment 

 to speak of this industry and its value, because I know that the 

 business men of the State have little knowledge, real knowledge, 

 of wdiat it is and of what it is doing. We have not come here, 

 my friends, in answer to your invitation, that we might exhibit 

 the fruit alone, we have not come here that we might listen to 

 or participate in the discussions of the varied questions, — we 

 have come that we might call, if possible, the men and women 

 of the cities and the towns, who are not the producers of food, 

 into our gatherings, and that they might see something of what 

 the men are doing out upon the farms, that they might come to 

 realize that the struggle there is for improvement, that the 

 effort there is for the building up of a better standard of quality 



