136 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



President Charles Wright of the Peninsular Horticultural 

 Society says, "We must expect good crops, and if properly 

 handled, fair prices for them." It is a good way to look at 

 things in Maine and the secretary is inclined to think in orchard- 

 ing we are quite likely to get better crops than we deserve for 

 the culture, perhaps non-culture, given. He also says, "It is 

 possible to put color into a peach, to put quality into a potato, 

 to make a strawberry firm and cause many other changes by a 

 judicious use of fertilizers. The fertility of our soil is largely 

 kept up by clover, cow peas and other nitrogen-gathering plants." 



Several agricultural societies in Maine are offering premiums, 

 for Kieffer pears. It seems to the secretary unwise to ofifer 

 premiums for a fruit we cannot grow well. So far the secre- 

 tary does not remember seeing a plate of good Kieffers anywhere 

 in Maine. A Kieffer is poor enough anyway, but a poor Kieffer 

 is worse than a poor Ben Davis, and here in Maine they are all 

 inferior. Belter offer premiums for varieties that deserve them. 



At the present time, the great bulk of the fruit crop of the 

 country is stored in the larger cities, but there is a growing' 

 tendency toward the erection of storage houses in the fruit- 

 growing districts. Western New York leads in the movement,' 

 there being more local cold storages in that section than in any 

 other fruit growing districts in the United States. S. H. Fulton, 

 Assistant Pomolo gist, Washington, D. C. 



