132 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



animals are hidden possibilities to be uncovered and utilized by 

 man for man. Only he who knows best the story Mother 

 Earth would tell can unlock its hidden treasures, only he who 

 best knows himself can measure the heights towards the Infinite. 

 Only he who has been trained in hand and head and heart can 

 fathom the depths and make plain the path for others to walk 

 to greater success. 



Wilfrid Wheeeer, Concord, Mass., Chairman Committee on 

 Fruits, ^Massachusetts Horticultural Society. 

 It gives me a great deal of pleasure to be down here at one 

 of these meetings of the Society which is doing so much for the 

 promotion of horticulture in New England, and I feel especially 

 honored at this time to be able to represent a society in Massa- 

 chusetts which is v>'orking along similar lines. We are striving 

 to bring forth the quality of not only fruit, but vegetables and 

 flowers in the State, where that industry has been more or less 

 neglected in the last twenty-five years. It seems to me that 

 the possibilities for fruit growing in Maine are not confined to 

 the apple but that the subject of small fruits ought to be more 

 prominently brovight forth in a community of this sort. You 

 have a wonderful state here for the growing of all kinds of 

 fruits — not only the apple which is discussed at length here and 

 seems to be the prominent topic of this Convention, but for 

 small fruits, that ought to be grown on your farms, and oughl» 

 to be distributed throughout your cities and through your rural 

 communities to a greater extent. Principal among these is the 

 strawberr}^ which is by far the leading small fruit in this coun- 

 try. It is a fruit that lends itself to any climate, to any situa- 

 tion, to almost any soil, and it is a fruit that can be shipped 

 great distances ; it can be used at home, it can be used in pre- 

 serving, and in many other ways, and it seems to me that the 

 Maine farmers and the Maine horticulturists ought to consider 

 this question very seriously. The growing of small fruits is 

 practically a simple matter if taken up systematically. A 

 strawberry can be planted in one year and a liberal crop reaped 

 the next, which you cannot do with apples or any of the tree 

 fruits. And it can be grown among your orchards. For 



