226 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



TO MR. GILBERT. 



RuTiLLUS Alden. When you were a young man you real- 

 ized the importance and magniture of agriculture. You de- 

 voted your early days to its interests. You have helped to 

 organize and build up our different agricultural societies. You 

 have been the means of putting on record many of our best laws 

 for the protection of agriculture. You have in your wisdom 

 taken hold of the fruit interest of the State. You have built 

 up the fruit industry, you have been persistent in your efforts 

 and many of us are reaping the benefits of your work. Later 

 on you and I worked together to see if it was possible to have 

 a 'Professor of Agriculture at our State College, when we were 

 trustees, and sometimes we felt that we were ignored, but 

 thank God, today our State College is graduating some of our 

 best men and doing a wonderfully good work, of which you and 

 I have reason to be proud. Later on you helped us to organ- 

 ize our Dairymen's Association ; you have taken hold and lent 

 your aid, and have been to nearly every meeting, notwithstand- 

 ing your age, and a few of your friends thought it would be nice 

 to give you a slight token of appreciation of what you have done 

 for us. If your friends all over the State of Maine could have 

 known about it and been allowed to contribute, instead of giving 

 you a gold headed cane, Brother Gilbert, they would have given 

 you a solid gold cane. 



Mr. Gilbert : This is a surprise to me ; I appreciate it. 

 It was entirely unlooked for, unthought of, undreamed of. It 

 is a gratification to me to receive this endorsement of the work 

 that I have been engaged in during my life, and that I have 

 prosecuted to the best of my ability, in the several directions in 

 which I have labored ; and to know that at this time, after I have 

 laid down those labors I have received this expression on your 

 part of the confidence in the efforts that I have put forth. I 

 hope that those labors have been fruitful in some measure of re- 

 sults. They have been put forth honestly, truly, uprightly, and 

 for the sole purpose of benefiting the State of Maine. 



