28 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 

 Hon. J. M. Sanborn, Newport. 



Mr. President, Members of the State Pomological Society and 



Fellow Citizens: 



In behalf of the members of Sebasticook Grange and the citi- 

 zens of the town of Newport, we bid you a sincere and hearty 

 welcome, and extend to you the hospitalities of our town. This 

 is the first time that we have had the honor of your presence 

 with us, and we beg to assure you that your visit will be fully 

 appreciated. We feel that you will pardon us, if we say 

 that your welcome, perhaps from a selfish standpoint alone, is all 

 the more cordial because we wish to place ourselves at your feet 

 for needed instruction. We wish to say that Newport is 

 becoming a prosperous town. We are ambitious, we are deter- 

 mined to expand and develop to the utmost our resources, but 

 in righteous and just ways alone. Now we are the natural 

 center of an extensive agricultural district. The soil of the 

 Sebasticook river, which drains Western Penobscot and Eastern 

 Somerset counties, is not rivalled, in our judgment, in fertility 

 and remunerative capacity, under proper conditions, by the far 

 famed lands of the Aroostook valley. 



As a village, therefore, we are interested in agriculture. Our 

 continued development depends largely upon the prosperity of 

 the farmer. He will be considered our greatest statesman and 

 best friend who will do the most to secure and maintain that 

 prosperity. But, notwithstanding our natural advantages, the 

 science of fruit culture in its various branches, is almost in its 

 infancy throughout this community. We have but few large 

 orchards, we may state still fewer good ones. With a few shin- 

 ing exceptions here and there, this whole subject has been sadly 

 neglected by our farmers. Indeed, but little effort was made by 

 too many of them to save their fruit trees from the ravages and 

 blighting effects of the worms and caterpillars during the past 

 season. But on the whole, we feel that our farmers are coming 

 to understand more and more that agriculture is a science which 

 must be mastered, if success is to be attained. They are begin- 



