54 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



Our orchard interests are very important, and very briefly 

 I have tried to show you that I beHeve it is for our interests 

 to organize and to work in cooperation in packing and in mar- 

 keting our fruit. I beHeve that the men of Maine, the grow- 

 ers of apples, should take it into their hands to market their 

 own apples. I believe with this organization, if you can get 

 the central organization, even if you do not go to the point of 

 leaving the sale of the fruit in the hands of a central board, 

 that with twenty- five or fifty of these local organizations, as 

 much of our fruit is shipped to Europe, you could send a man 

 to England and another to Germany to look out for your 

 interests, and you surely need them. A\^e are selling our fruit 

 now to the first man that comes along ; we are paying large 

 freight rates on the railroads and steamers ; we are paying a 

 commission in England and we are paying wharf charges and 

 other charges, and they are eating up the profits. We are put- 

 ting our apples into the hands of strangers, commission men 

 and others, to sell for us, and we know nothing about it, we 

 have no control over it, we are not superintending it. This 

 is wrong, so I will recommend that you organize. I recom- 

 mend that you make some of these small organizations, and 

 you men who are interested, who are leaders in the orchard 

 movement, you men who have been successful, you men who 

 bring these beautiful apples to these exhibitions, you are the 

 men to whom we are looking to organize the orchard move- 

 ment in this state. I recommend that you divide this state into 

 districts, and that in each district you have a committee that 

 shall see to it this winter, right away, before another crop comes 

 around, and have an organization created. 



I remember a little story of a Frenchman who came to this 

 country for the first time. A friend of his in this country, a 

 Yankee, took him to one of the leading hotels. The French- 

 man had heard very much about pumpkin pie, that we love so 

 dearly ourselves, and he said, "I want a piece of pumpkin pie." 

 It was given him, and then he was asked how he liked it. Why, 

 he liked it, but he said, "There seems to be ginger, or something 

 of that kind in it." The answer was, "There is ginger in 

 everything in America," and that is what we need in our orchard 

 interests. 



