26 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



AFTERNOON. 



The Society met at 2 o'clock, and was called to order by the Pres- 

 ident, Mr. Chas. S. Pope of Manchester. The Secretary, Mr. 

 Samuel L. Boardman of Augusta, made an informal report of the 

 Society's transactions during the past year. The Treasurer, Mr. D. 

 H. Knowlton of Farmington, presented his annual report and it was 

 accepted. The Societ}^ then proceeded to the election of officers for 

 the current year. The Treasurer's report and the names of the officers 

 elected may be found in previous pages of the transactions. 



EVENING SESSION. 



The meeting was called to order by the President, at 7 o'clock, 

 who introduced Charles P. Haskell, Esq., of New Gloucester, who 

 delivered the address of welcome. 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 

 By Charles P. Haskell. 



Mr. President : You are doubtless aware that you have assembled 

 for your winter meeting in the oldest county in the State, save one, 

 a county in which agriculture has always been one of the leading 

 industries. 



At first it may have been in a measure unscientific, and of a kind 

 common to primitive New England, yet ever sustained and carried 

 on by a people who recognized the great fact that everywhere im- 

 proved methods of agriculture kept even pace with increasing intelli- 

 gence and civilization. 



In the improvement which has been made in farm stock, from the 

 old fashioned scrub that stood bristling and shivering in the cold, 

 to the sleek thoroughbred that now stands contentedly ruminating in 

 his bedded stall ; in laying aside the rude implements of husbandr}^ 

 of former da3's, to give place to the well nigh perfected ones of the 

 present ; in all the progress that agriculture has made in New Eng- 

 land ; in every department that tended to lessen human labor and at 

 the same time make it more remunerative ; in all the mighty march 

 of progress which the century has shown, not only in agriculture, 

 but in everything that contributes to the sum of human welfare, in- 



