STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 43 



money from the State to spread this education, to make it more 

 ■educational. Because I feel that our officers have done all in 

 their power with the money at their command to make it what 

 it should be. 



Now there are just a few little points that perhaps we might 

 change that I have thought of. and one of them is this : We are 

 all the time looking for something better. That is what makes 

 life worth living. We are hoping to find an apple that is a little 

 better than the Baldwin in all respects. Now if we had the 

 money it seems to me that we could profitably offer a fairly 

 liberal premium for seedlings to be exhibited on a table set apart 

 by itself. That is the only way we are ever going to get any- 

 thing of that kind. It would not take a great deal of money — 

 might divide it into four premiums, perhaps, and the man should 

 be obliged, when that premium was awarded, to give a descrip- 

 tion of the tree and its history so far as he could, and it should 

 be made a record. We know that almost every man that has 

 an old orchard, had what we call natural fruit, very few grafted 

 apples. But when he found one that was particularly good it 

 was scattered through the neighborhood, perhaps, but there it 

 ended — many of them ended there. I have an old farm that 

 has trees that — well, fifty years ago they were just as large as 

 they are now apparently, but they show marks of grafting, 

 and that has one of the best cooking apples that we have. But 

 it never has been disseminated, so far as I know, beyond that 

 one tree. But it seems to me that there would be a line that if 

 we had a little more money could be profitably put in practice. 

 I had intended to bring in a couple of samples of apples in here 

 Avith me. but I forgot it. \\'e have an experiment station at 

 Orono that is for our use, for our benefit. They are able with 

 the money that they have to put a man onto one job, we will say, 

 and let him spend one, two or three years and work out some- 

 thing that will be of benefit to the whole State of Maine. We 

 have a member of the Experiment Station Council. It seems to 

 me that one of his duties might be to make a report to this meet- 

 ing of what they are doing. 



Now there is one other point that takes a little money again, 

 and I am not sure but what the officers have looked into that 

 this year a little. You come here to one of these meetings, and 

 one of the first things that you will see is a man, or a lady, 



