STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. f "Tf /> 



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When, brother fruit-growers, you feel tempted to dea(\n<5^»ur a^fetes, \X 



think how you feel when you think you purchase\|fe0ti coffi^etj^^ lP 

 and when you drink it and find it largely some cheap foKligH?|?Hh- <i 



stance. I would like to see our granite hills not dotted 

 covered with orchards, so that when in bloom they would be one large 

 bouquet. Would there not, if there were fifty, yes, one hundred, 

 bearing apple trees in our State where there is now but one, be buy- 

 ers from all parts of the civilized world, scouring the country to 

 purchase our fruit and would not Maine be one of our richest 

 States ? 



I would by no means advise all to try orcharding upon a large scale, 

 for many would not succeed, for a person must have a taste for it 

 the same as for any other calling. 



When I have a man at work on my farm and I see him, while 

 mowing beside the wall, mow down without noticing fruit trees that 

 I have carefully- left, I do not advise him to set an orchard, but when 

 I find every little tree in his swath left and carefully mowed around, 

 I can say with confidence, young man, buy you a farm that is natural 

 orchard land and raise a nurser}^ or set all the trees you can raise 

 or purchase and you will soon have an income that will astonish the 

 man with his money at interest. Doubtless many will ask how they 

 can keep up the fertility of so large an amount of orcharding. 

 Pasture with sheep and swine and 3'ou will have better apples than 

 in any other way, less worms and borers and no mice. 



As experience in anything is better than mere theory I will simply 

 saj^ that although the past year was an off year in orcharding, still 

 my fruit raised in sheep and swine pastures will bring me in the snug 

 little sum of seven hundred dollars. On the orchards from which 

 nearly all my fruit was raised there has not been fifty dollars' worth 

 of dressing used for the past fifteen years, except the droppings of 

 the sheep and swine as they have been pastured therein. 



Cannot the Maine State Pomological Society in view of our pecul- 

 iar adaptability for growing the hardier varieties of fruit, our facili- 

 ties for transportation, both by land and sea, in view of our healthy 

 climate, our schools and churches, our most excellent rural popu- 

 lation, our freedom from pestilential sickness and western cyclones, 

 saj' in confidence to the j-oung man, "stay in Maine and make an 

 extensive business growing fruit?'* 



