STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIKTV. 29 



the demand is for more fruit and that of the highest merit with- 

 out regard to cost. Business is booming in all directions, people 

 are at work and likely to be for a series of years to come, wages 

 are good and money plenty, and among Americans it is ready 

 to be spent freely. 



The only unfortunate feature of the situation the present year 

 with the grower of fruit is that there is not a full crop of fruit 

 with which to meet the wide demand and liberal prices at com- 

 mand. This leads directly to the important question of fruit 

 every year, and the means through which annual bearing may 

 be promoted. I am aware this is an old problem, but in Maine 

 orcharding it is still important. We want not only better fruit, 

 the best, but we want it in the off years. Our fruit is too much 

 a volunteer crop ; we want it at command. While it may never 

 be possible to overcome in full damaging conditions of weather, 

 yet I maintain that a compromise, at least, can generally be 

 secured with those climatic conditions that otherwise would 

 result in total failure. Maine orchards are starving, that is, 

 the most of them. A more liberal policy of manuring and of 

 culture is imperative with nearly all our Maine orchards. Our 

 society can do no better service than to dwell upon this one fact 

 until common management is greatly improved in this direction. 

 The means through which our expanding orchards may be fer- 

 tilized up to the limit of the ability of the trees to respond is the 

 most important problem that confronts Maine fruit growers at 

 the present time. 



Fruit growers need inspiration as well as instruction. A 

 knowledge of how to grow fruit is of little avail where there is 

 not first a faith in the business and a confidence that it may be 

 made successful. The great fruit crop of 1896, when there was 

 more fruit grown than consumption called for or the market 

 could handle, gave rise to the question with growers whether the 

 country at large had not already passed the limit of demand with 

 their planting of orchards. Certainly evidence at that time 

 unmistakably showed there was more fruit than market. It is 

 not strange perhaps that confidence in the orchard as a source of 

 profitable revenue was shaken for the time. But since that year 

 every barrel of choice apples produced among us has found a 

 profitable market awaiting it clear down to the present autumn's 

 harvest when purchasers are on the run all through the State 



