334 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The Yellow Bellflowcr ranks on\y by the side of the Spy, while the 

 Ben Davis, though somewhat hardier than either, is of so poor a 

 quality that it can never be of much value where anj' of the pre- 

 ceding can be had, either by growth or importation. After all these 

 have been tested, the fact still remains that there is not found 

 among them one which can be grown with profit in the northern 

 half of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. 



Now I know b}' experience that at meetings like this the bulk of 

 the attendance is from the Baldwin country, and I have been chilled 

 in my enthusiasm greatly to find that m}' brother fruit-growers from 

 the Baldwin counti'y not only do not want any other apple for them- 

 selves, but thej- are not at all anxious for the discovery and distri- 

 bution of an}- rival of the Baldwin in the region where the Baldwin 

 will not grow. I suppose that this must all be regarded as quite 

 human and natural, ^-et nevertheless the interests of the few must 

 yield, in the long run, to the necessities of the man}'. We who live 

 in the "cold north" Avhere Baldwins, Greenings and Russets do 

 not thrive, feel exactly' as the peach and grape-growers of southern 

 New England feel, in desiring at least to possess some varieties that 

 will make them independent for home use, if not for market, of the 

 more favored regions to the south of them. And as the southern 

 peach and grape-growers do not seem to suffer at all from New 

 England competition, so, I think, in view of the wide home and 

 foreign market that is open to the peculiar apples of southern New 

 England, (and which is as free from any possible Southern as it is 

 from more northern competition,) our Baldwin growing friends can 

 well afford to look kindh', and even with some interest, upon the 

 efforts of pomologists in the " cold belt," to find out what ma}' be 

 done to make orcharding possible there, at least so far as to j'ield a 

 home supply sufficiently abundant and cheap to make life tolerable 

 in our long winters of zero temperature. 



I am sure that, as a State, Maine is vastly interested in the develop- 

 ment of fruit-growing north of the Baldwin region, which covers but 

 a few of her 32,000 square miles of territory. I doubt if there is a 

 space so large as Connecticut, in southwestern Maine, where the 

 standard winter apples are successful!}- grown on the commercial 

 scale ; and when the remaining 28,000 square miles are even moder- 

 ately populated, with all the people may do there in the way of 

 orcharding, it is quite likely they will still make a home market for 

 every surplus apple of the Baldwin-growing portion of the State. 



