STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 101 



US are put upon the market, ours may remain a little longer in the 

 cellar. 



A DRAWBACK. 



But there is one drawback to our prosperity in this line and this 

 is an instance where the many suffer for the sins of the few. A 

 class of orchardists and buyers commit a culpable wrong by fraudu- 

 lent packing of fruit for market. Upon this point one of the largest 

 apple buyers in Franklin county writes me. He says : 



"I believe there has got to be a change in the way apples are 

 packed for market or Maine will get left. On the whole, Maine 

 fruit is packed the poorest in any state. This is not as it should be. 

 We have the best fruit, and if the fruit could be packed honest, we 

 could get a paying price any year. I know of a lot of apples that 

 were shipped to Boston last fall and sold for $3 a barrel as soon as 

 they arrived. The same parties have had the apples of this orchard 

 tor a number of years and they were sure of the packing and willing 

 to pay for it. 



"There are lots of apples that will not get to market this year just 

 because their owners will not pack them as they should be. Buyers 

 in such a season a^ tbis shun such lots. In seasons of scarcity the 

 market will lake most anything and pay something for it, but in 

 s* asons when fruit is selling slow and low, these distrustful lots are 

 likt'ly to get left, as they should be." 



Ilones'y pays in the long run, while rascality like a boomerang, 

 rebounds and injures both guilty and innocent. Intellectual obliquity 

 is bad enough in these days of schools, but this boomerang of moral 

 crookedness which barks the shins of the greater innocent number 

 as well as the lesser guilty ones, must be overcome bj' the inculca- 

 tion of honesty from principle and policy or individual interest. 

 Most people wilt leave cff sinning if they can make a dollar by it. 



THE EDUCATIONAL IDEA. 



The orchardist of the future will be educated in his special field. 

 So too, may be said of other lines of agricultural industry, in fact, 

 tbi-i is so in a large sense now ; but the change in this respect has 

 just beguo. The lime is coming when the fundamental principles 

 of auriculiure will be a part of Ihe curriculum of all our schools. The 

 age in which we live demands it. 



Formerly, more than at the present day, mixed farming was prac- 

 ticed, wherein more than one of the varied industrial specialties 



