32 state; pomological society. 



ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



By Hon. Z. A. Gilbert, North Greene, President of Maine 

 State Pomological Society. 



The State Pomological Society was organized in 1873. A 

 society of long standing, like a man of advanced years, can look 

 back over the field of its activity, and pass in review the steps 

 of progress in its pathway as the impressions have been left 

 along the passing years of its labors. It was the privilege of 

 your present executive head to be "in at the bornin' " of this 

 society, and it has been his pleasure to keep in touch with every 

 step of its work, and note every milestone of advancement it 

 has set up along its way to the present time. 



Great changes in the condition and standing of the fruit indus- 

 try of our State have taken place in the years represented by the 

 life of this society, in all of which the society has had a part. 

 At the time of our organization the export outlet for fruit had 

 just begun to attract the attention of fruit growers in York state. 

 Our trade was chiefly confined to our own cities and occasional 

 small shipments to Boston. A few individuals could see greater 

 things for the fruit industry of our State, It is distinctly 

 remembered that an optimistic member of the executive board 

 of this society publicly expressed his belief that if the fruit 

 production of the State could be quadrupled the demand for the 

 same would be sharper than for the fruit then being grown, and 

 in their deliberations the officers queried whether the business 

 could ever become extensive enough to attract representatives 

 of those foreign business houses engaged in the fruit trade to 

 our own orchards. Such ideas, then only dreams, have come 

 to be realities, so that now there is hardly a neighborhood of 

 fruit growers in the State but is annually canvassed by agents 

 from Liverpool and Glasgow in the interests of the foreign trade 

 in our Maine grown fruit. These conditions fittingly represent 

 the increase in fruit growing in our State since this society was 

 organized in its aid, and in the development of which it has held 

 an active part. Yes, and this society is clearly seeing the oppor- 

 tunity for a still greater development of the industry in the near 

 future than has been its history in the past. 



