66 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 



In those days we had no foreign market and even if we had 

 there was no apples to send away. Bangor at that time offered 

 a market for any surplus fruit, holding the same position at 

 that time to Maine, that Aroostook does to-day. I remember 

 in my young days the idea held by the people was that pears 

 could not be raised in Maine, even if it were possible, it must 

 be in the extreme southern section of York county. 



Time brings its changes, but some active agency will always 

 help along in the matter. So we can see in the formation of 

 the Maine State Pomological Society ten years later that a new 

 interest had been awakened, and the people of the State were 

 alive to starting of orchards, grafting what trees they had to 

 varieties best suited to locality, soil, and market. 



But what a change has taken place, and practically we might 

 say within the limit of time of the existence of this society, but 

 most certainly it would date back no further than where we read 

 of a similar society formed in 1847 but for some reason it was 

 short lived and without doubt no great advancement was made 

 in the early years in the cultivation of fruit. 



Those same farms that then produced the small number of 

 barrels in a year, now produce from 200 to even as high as 1,000 

 barrels in a single year. And where for miles in a good farm- 

 ing section only a single pear tree be found and that of very 

 ordinary fruit, now we find almost every farm or garden with 

 its pear trees and every family is supplied with this toothsome 

 fruit. 



Not only has the apple and pear come into general cultiva- 

 tion but plums, strawberries, blackberries and most all kinds of 

 fruits that can be grown in our Maine climate, are success- 

 fully raised for the family and the market. 



What has wrought this great change? What agency has 

 been employed to bring about this happy consummation? Is it 

 not the meeting together year after year, in a gathering of this 

 kind, giving to each other their experience, successes, as well 

 as failures, and then the printing of your transactions being 

 spread amongst the people over the State to be read of all men, 

 and the theories, and the practices, there advocated utilized to 

 their advantage and future prosperity? 



The crop of apples in 1896 was without doubt the largest ever 

 produced in New England; the quahty the best, and the selling 



