28 AGRICULTURK OK MAI ML. 



They got to the window and flew up and down the glass, and 

 the children opened the window and let them go. They never 

 expected to see these little birds again, but the next morning 

 back ihey came, calling for food. The children opened the 

 window and spread the window sill with food and every day 

 for some days they fed them in that way. Finally the birds 

 flew away and did not come the next morning. So the children 

 went out under the trees and called and the birds came to be 

 fed, and all through the summer whenever the family sat out 

 in the yard under the trees the bluebirds would come to their 

 hands to be fed. 



If we can teach our children to take an interest in the living 

 birds, to put up bird houses, and to care for the orphaned young, 

 such children will always have a tender feeling for the birds and 

 thus the whole problem of the protection of birds for the future 

 will be solved. 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 



ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT. 



W. H. CoNANT, Buckfield. 



Ladies and Gentlemen: 



It is a pleasure to welcome you today to this, the fifty-first 

 annual meeting of this society, and also to congratulate our 

 members on the splendid crop of clean fruit produced this sea- 

 son, which demonstrates over again that Maine can produce both 

 quality and quantity. With every season come new problems 

 and in this respect 1914 is no exception. While the year 191 3 

 closed with a tremendous shortage of apples and high prices, 

 the season of 1914 opens with a normal crop, and with it that 

 wail we have so often heard, big crop and over production. 

 There is no question but that the European war has had a para- 

 lyzing efifect on the foreign markets as well as our home mar- 

 kets. Germany in recent years has been a heavy buyer of Maine 

 apples. This trade has been entirely cut off. England, how- 

 ever, has taken a large quantity of apples at a low price ; this, 

 with the increase in ocean freight charges, and the extremely 



