114 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



fruit on the ground from the high-headed trees, and I think 

 even more than we have on the low branches of the low-headed 

 trees, because of the upward growth of the lower system of 

 branches on the latter. 



HOW I RECLAIMED A NEGLECTED ORCHARD. 



By C. E. Hardy, Hollis, N. H. 

 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 



It gives me great pleasure to visit your fruit exposition and 

 see such a fine display of apples as you have here today. It 

 is certainly, for one of our New England States, a great ex- 

 hibition and a grand success. When I see such an exhibition 

 of fruit, it proves to me that the farmers of New England, 

 and of the State of Maine in particular, are beginning to realize 

 the possibilities that lie before them in the raising of fruit, and 

 especially apples. Also when I see such an exhibition and 

 listen to the remarks of the expert fruit growers who have 

 been talking to you yesterday and this morning, it makes me 

 feel rather small and out of place, to come down here from 

 New Hampshire and undertake to talk to you in any way in 

 regard to raising fruit, for I am not an expert in any sense of 

 the word; in fact, I had but very little experience in this line 

 previous to four years ago, and in the matter of setting out 

 trees and raising fruit from them have had no experience what- 

 ever. But Dr. Twitchell asked me to come down here and tell 

 the story of how I have reclaimed an old and neglected or- 

 chard, and that I can tell you in a very short time. It is simply 

 the work of four years. 



The farm in Hollis, N. H., which is now my home, is my 

 old native place where I was born and brought up. I worked 

 on the place as a boy and a young man for my father up to 

 something like twenty-one or twenty-two years ago, when, like a 

 good many young men, becoming dissatisfied with the methods 

 that my father used in carrying on, the farm, and also with a 

 good deal of the work I had to do, I thought I could do better in 

 other business. I stopped work on the farm and went into 

 business, and from that time up to four years ago knew but 



