STATE VOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 67 



While we may never be able to raise so fine pears as are produced 

 in other localities, we may safely say that of those varieties that are 

 known to thrive here, we can produce good fruit. There are fewer 

 enemies to the pear in Maine than farther south, and so far as devel- 

 oped, the industry pays well. Cherries and plums are raised as 

 easily in Maine as elsewhere, and the fruit is of excellent quality. 

 So long as it costs $500 a car to bring fruits across the continent, it 

 does not seem that New England, and especially Maine, should not 

 produce a large part of these fruits used in the East. Excellent 

 strawberries and other small fruits are successfully and profitably 

 raised in Maine. The season is just right, for at the time thej^ are 

 ripe they have the monopoly of the market. Railroads and boat 

 lines now make it possible for us to gather fruit one day, and lay it 

 down in the cit}' markets early the next morning. To the extent 

 already developed, the small fruits have paid well. Cranberries and 

 blueberries grow naturally on our mountains and plains. The 

 former respond quickly to culture, and by many found a paying crop. 

 The latter have received little if any attention at the hands of fruit 

 growers. They grow well in my garden, and I am glad to notice 

 that Dr. Sturtevant is giving some thought to their culture, for I 

 believe they will have a place, before many years among cultivated 

 fruits. 



PRESENT PROFITS OF FRUIT CULTURE IN MAINE. 



I am able to give you some of the present results in Maine fruit 

 growing. As I have examined these figures, they compare favorably 

 with fruit growing in other sections ; and so far as agriculture is 

 concerned, it certainly leads any other feature of it here in Maine. 

 From the returns received, I find but few who have been raisins: 

 apples for market over thirty years. One of these, Mr. Phineas 

 Whittier of Chesterville, began forty years ago. He began labor as 

 a fruit grower by the purchase of ninety acres of old rocky pasture and 

 woodland for the sum of 8400, for which, he once told us, he was able 

 to pay only 875 down. During the past ten years, this piece of prop- 

 erty has produced, on an average, nearly $2,000 worth of apples each 

 year ; .and the past three years his receipts were $2,400, $4,200 and 

 $3,000, respectively. Eighteen hundred eighty-eight was the year 

 when so many people said "apples don't pa}^ in Maine." It may be a 

 matter of interest to add here that his No. 1 Northern Spy, for 1889 

 and 1890, sold as high as $8 per barrel. Mr. Whittier's 8400 invest- 



