134 STATE POMOI^OGICAIv SOCIETY. 



market and we have to ship sometimes into Maine and into New 

 Hampshire and into Vermont. But, at the same time, the market 

 is not used in the right way. We are apt to ship into a market 

 at short notice and get the varieties in there and there is a glut 

 in the market perhaps — no way of storing the way there is for 

 apples. So the market has got to be studied from a great 

 many points, and it can be looked into carefully by the Maine 

 growers. I think they will find that they have got a fine 

 opportunity for growing these small fruits and shipping them 

 south after our crops are gone. 



Then this question of co-operation among societies — I feel 

 that this is going to be one of the greatest outcomes of these 

 meetings : We are going to get together and give each other 

 ideas along lines that we can all work together on, and we are 

 going to get mutual benefit from these meetings. Among other 

 things, there is one thing that we want to consider well, and 

 that is keeping the young men home on the farms. You know 

 the rural communities supply the cities with all the mechanics, 

 clerks, and all the young men that practically work the 

 machinery of a large city, and the farms of New England are 

 suffering on that account. We are running our farms largely 

 with old men, the last generation. The younger people are not 

 true to the farms, or if they are they don't go out and study 

 methods. I know the agricultural colleges are doing a great 

 deal of good in that line, but at the same time if that isn't tried 

 at home you never get the benefit from it that the agricultural 

 colleges should give. That is a point we all want to get 

 together on and devise means of keeping the young men at home 

 on the farm. The most important asset that a New England 

 farm can have is a son growing up ready to take his father's 

 business and carry it on. Farming, agriculture and horticul- 

 ture in New England should be treated as a business and have 

 business methods applied to it the same as any business in a 

 large city is run. And I believe that a larger per cant, of 

 money and a larger per cent, of health can be gained from the 

 New England farm than from any other business or occupation 

 that this country knows at present. 



And a word on the apples, while I am speaking of the horti- 

 cultural interests of New England. What we want particu- 

 larly in our large cities is not so much quantity — we are getting 



