24 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



There is a method of treatment, which has general appHca- 

 tion, and will insure health, vigor and highest productiveness 

 to any orchard and this must be made plain. To my mind 

 here is the specific work for this, the only organized fruit 

 body of the State. The holding of annual sessions, the calling 

 together of such grand exhibitions of fruit, not to be excelled 

 on the globe, in quality, the organizing of a program like the 

 one opening before us and the publishing of an annual report 

 is, to-day, uot the complete work of a state pomological society. 



Our mission cannot be realized until ]\Iaine apples stand for 

 something, until we have established a standard in apple culture 

 and are able to maintain it. until we can educate the coming 

 man to grow the best fruit possible, where the choicest is cer- 

 tain to follow right cultural methods. 



Before desired results can be obtained certain specific steps 

 must be recognized and followed. 



1st. Greater care is necessary in the selection of a site for 

 an orchard. The complications forced by the multiplication 

 of insect pests and diseases and the certainty of further in- 

 crease necessitate the selection of orchard sites where sprayers 

 can easily be operated, while the heavy loss in Maine during 

 the past ten years liy freezing makes prominent the subject of 

 natural or acquired drainage to protect the trees. 



2d. It is high time the door was permanently closed against 

 the irresponsible tree agent, and every would-be purchaser 

 urged to confine his orders to a few standard varieties and 

 his trac'e to nursery men known to be reliable, whose written 

 guarantee can be accepted as adequate protection. Too many 

 orchards just coming into bearing, as well as those older, tell 

 of rank injustice, or worse, on the part of agents or tree 

 dealers. The sale of thousands of trees in Maine the past year, 

 of a well known variety, long after the market was sold bare 

 and a supply could not be obtainefl, is a form of tree business 

 from which would-be fruit growers must be protected. Every 

 buyer is entitled to a guarantee that every tree shipped is 

 whole root budded or grafted and that the scions came from 

 tested trees known to produce choice fruit and to have been 

 pers'stert bearers. The element of chance must be eliminated 

 to the farthest degree. 



