STATE POMOLOGICAI. SOCIETY. I49 



of customs for the district of Wiscasset serving in that office 

 in all over eight years ; he served for several years as one of the 

 selectmen of Wiscasset, at a time when his business training 

 and abilities were of great service to the town. In 1881 Mr. 

 Sawyer was a member of the Maine State Valuation Commis- 

 sion, and acted as clerk of that body. He was long a prominent 

 official of the Lincoln County Bar Association, and was a mem- 

 ber of the Maine State Bar Association. He was one of the 

 founders of the Wiscasset Savings Bank in 1866, and served as 

 a trustee of that institution for more than thirty years and as its 

 president from 1885 to 1898. 



Mr. Sawyer, more than all these matters, was a man who 

 enjoyed serving public interests. After the Civil War was over 

 and the farmers were awakening to the possibilities of agricul- 

 ture in the State, Mr. Sawyer was ready to lend a hand to the 

 forward movement. He realized the importance of fruit grow- 

 ing, knew by his own observation that the climate was favor- 

 able. Thus it was in 1873 when the Maine State Pomological 

 Society was organized he was found among the original mem- 

 bers of that society, and with our president as its first presiding 

 officer he became its first secretary and treasurer. In his report 

 for the first year, referring to the Hon. S. L. Goodale : "It is 

 to be regretted that at the organization of this society he was 

 unwilling to accept the office of secretary for w^hich he was so 

 well fitted. That which to him would have been an easy labor, 

 and to the public a valuable service, is to a novice a laborious 

 duty." 



Mr. Sawyer thus gave some idea of his own estimate of the 

 work he had taken upon himself. Many times I have glanced 

 over the pages of this report and those edited by Mr. Sawyer 

 during his secretaryship, and I am well nigh appalled at the 

 work he put into them, for every one bears the mark of his 

 diligence and research, for at that time less was known of fruit 

 culture and the data were available only to those who searched 

 it out. His observation, confirmed by the experiments he con- 

 ducted on his own grounds, convinced him of the possibilities 

 of fruit culture in Maine. He sought knowledge of fruits from 

 the books he bought, from the people he met and from the fruits 

 he grew. Freely he imparted the knowledge thus gained. To 

 my mind he was an ideal secretary, and the vast work he per- 



