I08 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



furtherance of your plans and your work. We are the agents, 

 you may say, of the people of the State, to find what is latest 

 and best in every scientific, agricultural and professional line. 



I close as I began : We welcome you, officially and person- 

 ally and cordially to anything and everything that there is here, 

 and we want you to help us build this institution to its highest 

 usefulness to you and to all that come here as students, so that 

 every professor and teacher here may be an agent for the pro- 

 mulgation of the best and the highest that there is in agricul- 

 tural life and in all the life of the community of the State. 



President Gilbert : As the representative of the society who 

 has called this meeting, it perhaps devolves upon me as much as 

 any one to express thanks for the welcome which is given us 

 here on this occasion, and to assure the representative of the 

 Institution, who has thus expressed their pleasure at our pres- 

 ence with them, that we are only too glad to aid in any way pos- 

 sible in furthering the knowledge among the people of what 

 there is here to be found and what they are furnishing in con- 

 nection with the educational work of the State. In our behalf, 

 therefore, I extend to you cordially thanks for the reception 

 that we are here and now receiving. 



Prof. W. M. ]\Iuxsox : (For the Experiment Station.) 

 For some years the Experiment Station has been doing what it 

 could for the development of the pomological interests of the 

 State. Most of you know that the work of the Station is very 

 largely carried on away from the College. The reason for this 

 I tried to express, is that the conditions here on this island — for, 

 as you know, the college is located on an island in the Penobscot 

 River — are not suited for orchard work. 



]\Iany of you had an opportunity to see one of the lines of 

 orchard work being carried on by the Experiment Station, at 

 the Field Meeting in the orchard of Air. Pope two years ago, 

 and the bulletins of the Station will express more clearly than I 

 can do at this time just the bearing of that work. Suffice it to 

 say, the purpose of the horticultural work of the Experiment 

 Station at the present time is to develop an interest in Maine 

 orchards, to aid in developing the orchard resources of the State. 



W^e have for many years boasted that we have the natural 

 conditions best suited to the production of the best fruit in this 

 country, but it is to our shame that we have not developed those 



