STATE POMOLOGICAIv SOCIETY. 6$ 



that I commenced and branched out and went into fruit culture. 

 I remember distinctly how my father used to smile when 

 I would make a failure, and I made them — I made lots of 

 them. At that date we didn't have all over the State of 

 Maine the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry, which is 

 one of the best, if not the best organization that there is 

 in existence for a farmer, for an agriculturist. We have 

 meetings weekly, once in two weeks or monthly and go 

 and talk of our business pertaining to the farm and the 

 orchard and the garden. We didn't have those, or if they 

 did, I didn't know anything about it. It was feel my way 

 along. If some paper dickey dude came along and told me that 

 a dwarf pear would bear sooner than the standard, and I bought 

 it, and the next year I discovered it was budded on a quince root 

 and the quince root wouldn't live in this country — I had bought 

 that, paid for it, had that experience — I knew after that. Now 

 we go to the meetings of the Grange and talk these things over ; 

 they will tell you these stories because it is in the interests of the 

 organization to talk over such things. I didn't have them. But 

 I went on in that way and I bought my education. I paid for it. 

 I succeeded after a long time ; had a hard struggle, but succeeded 

 in getting into varieties of different kinds of fruit until I have 

 made something of a success. 



Now cultivation, lots of things, have been talked over here 

 about orcharding. Bro. DeCoster knows more about orchard- 

 ing than I do. He has experimented. The little fact that he 

 told you, that he bought the plot of land where he set the trees 

 for $300 and it was now worth $1,000, is significant. That may 

 be the case all over the country if men will do it. He never did 

 that by sitting on a nail keg around the stores and smoking a 

 T. D. pipe. He never got it that way. He had to get up and 

 get, and look out for it and know it was cared for — fertilizer was 

 put on the plant and it was taken care of and sprayed and every- 

 thing done just about right to have it grow. With every other 

 business it is just the same. 



I followed along one thing after another, and many times I 

 have had large plats of strawberries and other fruits, of plums, 

 of pears, of blackberries, currants and gooseberries. Now I am 

 running largely to currants and gooseberries, because many of 



