26 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



am forced to the conviction that before we urge further increase 

 we should emphasize better treatment of what we have. The 

 man who fails to care for his old trees will never give proper 

 attention to a new orchard. The steady increase of pests and 

 diseases, brought here largely on fruit stock, forces attention 

 to the trees now standing and their protection in every way 

 possible. Beyond this there is call for an organized movement 

 to cut down and burn every worthless tree or those so situated 

 as to be of no earning value. These harboring spots for all 

 pests and disease spores must be reduced to the utmost that the 

 cost of protection for growing orchards may be minimized. It 

 is desired that this end be reached without drastic legislation, 

 but the protection must in some way be insured. The develop- 

 ment of the industry outweighs the wishes of any individual and 

 must be the sole standard of action. Today the apple industry 

 is worth to Maine from two to three million dollars yearly. If 

 the trees now standing, and of bearing age, were looked after 

 and also protected from insect pests and diseases, this total 

 would be more than doubled. Through the generosity of a 

 life long friend of Maine, Hon. J. J. H. Gregory, and the earnest 

 continued efiforts of the Maine State Department of Agricul- 

 ture, a grand total of prizes has been secured, to be distributed 

 in 1915 and to compete nearly five hundred acres were set the 

 past season. This means that in the not far distant future, 

 Maine's apple crop will be greatly increased, or that, through 

 failure to care for the trees, the industry will be lost. More 

 than one hundred thousand apple trees were set in Maine in 

 1910 and well will it be if the owners thereof demand protec- 

 tion from neglected trees and rigid methods of treatment for 

 growing orchards. 



One of the most pernicious pests and one beyond the reach 

 of spraying solutions, a pest which, this year, has rendered 

 worthless thousands upon thousands of barrels of otherwise 

 choice fruit, is the familiar railroad worm. We urge the de- 

 struction of this pest by frequent picking and burning of all 

 dropped fruit or the feeding of the same to the hogs or sheep, 

 but unfortunately the men who pick are at the mercy of neigh- 

 bors who will not, or of native trees growing wild along the 

 highways. The man who does not pick and destroy should be 



