4 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The operations of the Society during the past year, aside from 

 the Annual Exhibition and Winter Meeting which will be more 

 fully detailed in subsequent pages of this report, may be stated 

 in a few words. The officers have, as heretofore, rendered their 

 services without compensation, and have transacted the most of 

 the business devolving on them by means of correspondence, 

 necessarily frequent and voluminous, in preference to entailing 

 upon the Society the expense of frequent meetings. In fact but 

 one meeting of the Executive Committee was held during the year 

 otherwise than in connection with the general meetings of the 

 Society. 



The library has not been increased except by the addition of 

 public and official documents and the reports of other societies 

 received in exchange for our own, a list of which will be found in 

 the report of the Corresponding Secretary. 



There has been during the year frequent and extensive corres- 

 pondence between the members, and they have contributed to the 

 newspapers a large number of valuable articles on horticultural 

 subjects. The public Press of the State is entitled to much credit 

 for the large amount of horticultural matter of a high order, both 

 original and selected, which it has of late given to the public in 

 answer to an increased demand. On every hand there are un- 

 mistakable indications that the people of the State are thinking 

 upon the subject, and it is the laudable ambition of this Society 

 to lead in and give the proper direction to the interest which it 

 has been instrumental in awakening. 



The results of some of the specific researches and observations 

 of the members and committees of the Society will appear in the 

 detached papers at the end of this report. 



The Season op 18T6 



was in its climatic conditions generally favorable for fruit-culture 

 in this State. Throughout a considerable portion of the State, 

 embracing parts of Androscoggin, Franklin, Kennebec and Oxford 

 counties, the crop of apples was greatly reduced and in some 

 localities entirely cut off by the ravages of caterpillars. But in 

 sections where this was not the case and where the vitality of the 

 trees had not been impaired by the operation of the same cause 

 in the preceding year it is believed the crop was fully an average 

 one ; and the fruit was uniformly well ripened and fair. Those 

 persons who have not witnessed the devastation alluded to can 



