48 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



important feature of our fairs. Without any clamor or display 

 many animals change hands at the fairs, and in this way many 

 people are able to improve their stock. 



At the last annual exhibition our Society awarded premiums to 

 the amount of $562, while the State Agricultural Society, with 

 whom we held the exhibition awarded $5,530. The smaller sum 

 represents all the fruits and flowers and with a hundred dollars or 

 such a matter from the larger sum, the products of the soil seem 

 to have a very small encouragement. It maj' be all right for the 

 animal industries to have the major part of the premiums but a 

 question is suggested whether the discrimination may not in the 

 end work an injury to the cause it is intended to benefit most. 



But that which concerns us most is our own exhibition and to 

 that I wish now to call your attention. It has been the purpose of 

 the otTicers, so far as possible, to make it a complete exhibition of 

 Maine fruits and flowers, so that people from other states who visit 

 the fair may have an intelligent idea of the wide range the State 

 has of these products. Further than this there has been an effort 

 to arrange the exhibition so as to make it attractive and pleasant 

 for the visitors. For one, it is my belief that it should be as near 

 a perfect model as possible, but there are so many details connected 

 with it, it is difficult to make the exhibition in this respect what it 

 should be. As illustrative of this, arranging the fruit, i. e., putting 

 it in the place assigned to it, often requires a large amount of work 

 and were it not for the willingness of exhibitors to assist the officers 

 it would be an exceedingly difficult task. For many years it has 

 been a special work of the Society to correct the names of fruit, 

 when wrongly named, and each year there seems to be just about 

 as much confusion of names as ever before. The canned fruits and 

 preserves have been a troublesome class of exhibits to care for, 

 but the last two years the best results have been reached in the 

 history of the Society. These and the fruits likely to be stolen by 

 those disposed to yield to temptations at such times have been 

 exhibited with satisfactory result behind poultry netting. The dis- 

 play has lost nothing and the articles have been safe. 



Although we have made special efforts to secure an exhibition of 

 fruit from all parts of the State, no county collections of apples have 

 been shown in recent years from Hancock, Piscataquis, Washington 

 and York counties. It would be a pleasure to see fruit from these 

 counties, as we have the very best reason for supposing good 



