88 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



From what I have akeady said upon this subject, some of you 

 may think that the cultivation of small fruits is very intricate and 

 laborious. True, there are many things to learn, and I don't deny 

 but there is lots of labor to be performed ; but it is a labor in which 

 my soul delights. There is nothing so difficult or laborious con- 

 nected with the business but that any one who has any taste at all 

 can easily learn. I can cultivate an acre of strawberries, after it 

 has once been prepared, with as little labor and expense as I can 

 an acre of corn, except the picking, and it does not cost as much to 

 run an acre of blackberries and raspberries as it does an acre of 

 corn, after the soil has been prepared and the bushes set. I believe 

 there is no place in the world where they can raise more nice fruits 

 than we can in the State of Maine, or where they can make it more 

 profitable. We have thousands of acres on our hillsides and val- 

 leys that are far more desirable, and can be made to pay a better 

 profit than the orange groves of Florida. There is not the slightest 

 reason why we should not excel as a fruit producing State, as well 

 as in producing the best statesmen, the most beautiful ladies and 

 the fastest horses. If our young men would take the same interest, 

 and work as hard to produce fine fruits as they do to play base ball, 

 our success would be assured. But the great drawback in all our 

 agricultural pursuits is the labor connected with them, and its 

 unpopularity, especially with our young people. This labor ques- 

 tion is what the world has to contend with in everything, and small 

 fruits are no exception. 



If we go back into history as far as we can get, we read that 

 after God had created man. He also made a beautiful garden, and 

 put him into it to dress and to keep it. He did not put him there 

 to live and revel in luxury and ease. He wanted him to labor, 

 dress the garden, and take care of it. But he was so lazy he would 

 not do it, and God had to drive him out. God was not to blame, 

 and I don't think Adam's wife was any more to blame than her 

 husband. But God drove them both out together. (He did not 

 believe in divorce) ; but he wanted them to go where they would be 

 obliged to get an honest living by the sweat of their brows. There 

 is no doubt but what it was the very best thing that could possibly 

 have been done for them. But they did not believe it. Labor was 

 not popular then, and it is not to-day, especially in connection with 

 agriculture. And I see no way to solve this question but to accept 

 the situation in good faith, and teach our children that it is a bless- 



