102 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



were fostered. Later, progressive methods have lead to special lines 

 in industrial practice. 



The relations of one section of the country with another change 

 with the progress of industrial ideas. Population increases and 

 markets for all the products of the farm fluctuate and change. 

 Methods of production, as well as the commodities produced, feel 

 the force of twentieth century push and energy. This is true in 

 relation to our stock, our butter and cheese, our apples and small 

 fruits. The only thing for the Maine farmer to do, is to catch on 

 and keep up with the procession. 



This we have not done. The average agricultural mind is slow 

 to appreciate the circumstances of environment. It takes a ^ood 

 deal of plowing, and sub-soiling, and harrowing and warming by 

 the sunlight of progressive thought and ideas, before it comprehends 

 that the procession is moving forward. 



But the dawn of a better day is upon us. Farmers are reading 

 more, thinking more, and above all, putting into practice the lessons 

 they have learned by their research. Those great lights, ilie experi- 

 ment stations and agricultural colleges, ably supported by the 

 boards of agriculture and kindred associations fostered by the state 

 and national governments are a power, which, sustained and reflected 

 by the agricultural press, are woiking radical changes in thought, 

 ideas and practice, as a whole, in New England agriculture. 



Human thought is progressive. We that are older and have kept 

 in touch with the spirit of progress and the environing forces which 

 impels to the difl!^usion of light and knowledge, must admit that ideas 

 are dominent in the destiny of the commonwealth which means the 

 agriculturist, because he is the better half of the commonwealth. 



For the reason I have stated we are in a transition period regard- 

 ing agricultural technics. Old methods and obsolete notions have 

 not all been discarded, nor will they be till tbe present white-headed 

 generation has become obsolete. The old-fashioned, slip-<hod farm- 

 ers are not all gone ; but the new-fashioned broader brained — because 

 a higher developed brain — farmer is just coming. 



THE FORCE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 



The farmer of the earlier period adjusted his practice to liis sur- 

 roundings and his ideas developed accordingly. But his practice of 

 necessity, in conformance to the laws of cause and efl'ect, in time — 

 though so slow the contemporary generation failed to diecover it, 



