TWENTIETH ANNUAL MEETING. 117 



I said, "This fruit beseems no world of sin, 

 Its parent vine, rooted in Paradise, 

 O'er-crept the wall and never paid the price 

 Of the great mischief, — an amibrosial tree, 

 Eden's exotic, somehovv smuggled in 

 To keep the thorns and thistles company." 



Perchance our frail sad mother plucked in haste 



A single vine-slip as she passed the gate 



Where the dread sword alternate paled and burned, 



And the stern angel, pitying her fate. 



Forgave the lovely trespasser and turned 



Aside his face of fire: and thus the waste 



And fallen world hath yet its annual taste 



Of primal good, to prove of sin the cost, 



And show by one gleaned ear the mighty harvest lost. 



Gentlemen can we not engage in otir fruit growing 

 business with some such sentiment in our hearts as that 

 expressed by your New England Quaker poet? 



I shall carry back to Virginia with me the most happy 

 recollections of this meeting, and if God will, I should like 

 again to visit and meet with yoti at some ftiture time and 

 note the progress you have made. 



I hope in the very near future to see Virginia, Con- 

 necticut, Xew York and the whole eastern United States 

 engaged in making a splendid eastern national fruit show, 

 where all interests can combine for the common good. 

 \A'e need that sort of an incentive. It is well for the New 

 England people to have a Boston fruit show ; it is well for 

 us in Virginia to have out own frtiit show; it is well for 

 New York to have her fruit show at Rochester, but it is far 

 better for all of us to unite at some time in a great national 

 eastern fruit show at some central point where the whole 

 people can be educated to the uses of the fruits grown in 

 the east. (Applause). 



I will not tmdertake to detain you longer, because not- 

 withstanding the remarks of your toastmaster, 1 was in- 

 formed before I came to the hall to-night, that if 1 detained 

 you longer than ten minutes, I should be called down. I 



