78 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



course of procedure has been tending in this direction. Pliineas 

 Whittier, so well known and so highly successful, whose extensive 

 grounds are hidden from my own home only by a thin veil of forest 

 growth now fast receding, is a living example of what man can do. 

 With such a large area wholly devoted to the raising of fruit, with 

 thrifty, bearing trees counting up into the thousands, and a like 

 number rapidly coming to maturity, with annual product of fruit 

 already exceeding that of any other orchard in the count}^ or State 

 even ; with a net income of four or five thousand dollars, and the 

 summit of his ambition not yet reached I 



PLUM CULTURE. 

 By Elijah Loav. Bangor. 



It certainly would afford me much pleasure, in complying with 

 the request of your secretary, to add to the interest of your visit by 

 writing a shoit article upon Plum Culture. Whatever I may sa}^ 

 however, must be the result of personal experience and observation, 

 and while I most cheerfully join in the cordial welcome extended to 

 you, winter has put its cold seal upon every vestige of horticultural 

 life ; and did I not know of your benevolent feelings toward us, I 

 should adopt the severe rebuke of Joseph to his bretheu, "Ye are 

 spies ; to see the nakedness of the land are ye come." But were 

 we in the fruitful season of the year, I cou'd not promise that you 

 would find repeated our former horticultural success, as achieved 

 under the skill and effort of such men as James McLaughlin, Henry 

 Little, John S. Say ward, Albert Noyes, Albert Emerson, Dr. AYes- 

 ton, S. S. Low, John E. Godfry, and others, who have left us, but 

 who brought the Penobscot valley in sharp rivalry with the Hudson, 

 for the production of this most valuable and beautiful fruit, the 

 plum. These pioneers of horticulture were men of means and 

 leisure, two important factors in fruit raising, and could produce 

 from their graperies and gardens an exhibition that could not be 

 beat, certainly has not, in any I have seen. 



A series of misfortunes have served to depress and render more 

 difficult success in our favorite pursuit of fruit culture. The men 

 who have succeeded those pioneers are not, as a rule, men of leisure 

 and means, but find themselves too much engrossed in their business 



