STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. l8l 



grow fruit that can beat all that western fruit, and certainly in 

 quality it is far ahead of it now. We have a soil here, climatic 

 conditions and markets that are superior to any other part of 

 the country. We are near to the sea where apples and all our 

 more hardy fruits can be shipped, and we are near to the markets 

 where a large per cent of the fruit of the country is consumed. 

 Therefore it is up to New England to prove to this country and 

 to the world that we can grow fruit better than any other part 

 of the country. 



Robert H. Gardiner, Gardiner. 



It has been a very great pleasure to me to be at the meeting 

 of the Society. I have been a member of it, I believe, ever since 

 the death of my father, but I seem to have so many irons in the 

 fire that I never have been able to get time to attend a meeting 

 before. I have found so much pleasure and profit in this meet- 

 ing that I am going to turn over a new leaf and turn up at every 

 meeting if possible in the future. 



As I have not been a regular attendant of meetings of the 

 Society, I want to say — and we are all here in the family so that 

 I think we can speak pretty openly without seeming to pat our- 

 selves too much on the back, — I have been a good deal struck 

 with the tone of the meeting as brought out in the opening 

 remadcs of our President tonight. I have had the misfortune to 

 have spent a good deal of my time in Boston among business 

 men there, and there are altogether too many business men in 

 Boston, as in every other large city who when they find a good 

 thing try and keep it to themselves — they don't want any one 

 else to know about it because they are afraid somebody else will 

 share in that good thing and get some of the advantages which 

 they are getting themselves. They won't, except when they 

 want to borrow money at the bank, they won't admit that the 

 business in which they are engaged is beginning to pay its 

 expenses. I have been struck with the fact at this meeting that 

 we all know we have got a good thing and we want everybody 

 to know it, and, as Mr. Clark has just said, I don't think we begin 

 yet to know how good a thing apple raising, especially in Maine, 

 is going to be. I think, as Mr. Clark said, the half of the 

 advantages of apple raising in Maine has not yet been told. 



