STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 23 



jects, I believe it may very well be read by anyone engaged in 

 agriculture, horticulture or any phase of work in life. The 

 important thing is the faith in ourselves to work out these prob- 

 lems, and we have just as many advantages here in New Eng- 

 land as there are in any other section of the world. I say this 

 is the starting point in regard to the growing of better fruit in 

 New England, faith in ourselves that we can do it. 



All one has to do is to walk about this hall, and cast his eyes 

 upon this magnificent exhibition of fruit, which we know is not 

 only fair to look upon but is of the best quality, to see that some- 

 thing is fundamentally lacking in fruit from other sections of 

 the country. In the middle West they have varieties of fruit 

 that cannot be compared with the kinds that we have in New 

 England. In the far West they have apples that are fine in 

 appearance, but do not have the intrinsic merit that our fruit 

 in New England has. And so our fruit here has the double 

 advantage of fine appearance — something that will sell on its 

 looks — and also the merit of quality. 



Do not fear that the apple business in particular will be over- 

 done. We have heard that cry for years, and yet \vhat do 

 statistics tell us about the production of fruit? Since the year 

 1896, when we had a large crop, it has been decreasing every 

 year, and on the other hand our markets have been increasing. 

 We formerly thought a great deal about the market across the 

 water, but today we find that the great middle West is proving 

 a large market for our apple products. In fact this year they 

 have more buyers in the East than ever before. And I might 

 say right here that the apples grown in our own orchards 

 were bought by a Maine man and shipped to the West, and a 

 large part of the fruit in western Massachusetts has gone into 

 the middle West. 



Our fruit has two advantages in that section. It has the 

 quality that appeals to them. They have no fruit of quality 

 such as the Baldwin or Greening or Spy. And then on the 

 other hand there is the matter of sentiment. We find in the 

 middle West a large number of sons of New England, and they 

 know what the Baldwin and the Greening and the Spy are. The 

 names are trademarks, and they ask their wholesalers and their 

 retailers and their fruit-stand men for apples from the Bast, 



