STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETV. TJ 



N'ow let US get at the agricultural side, which this body more 

 particularly represents. Twenty years ago there was no nation in 

 Europe so low agriculturally as Denmark, that little Kingdom 

 away up in the corner of Europe. And today, if you read your 

 farm papers, and the literature bearing upon agriculture, you 

 know there is no nation in the world that stands higher in agri- 

 culture than Denmark. And' what is there to account for it? 

 Just the same kind of thing that accounts for the industrial 

 superiority of Germany, except that Denmark has done it agri- 

 culturally. 



Denmark, all told, is about one-half the size of the State of 

 Maine, not over that, and in it are an agricultural college and 

 twenty allied agricultural schools, — special agricultural schools. 

 And in those schools are four thousand students. And in addi- 

 tion to that, there are seventy-eight people's high schools in 

 which agriculture is taught. Without going into details, you 

 can draw your own conclusions. I repeat, that agriculturally, 

 Denmark stands highest on the continent of Europe. There is 

 enough to account for it. There are six thousand pupils in 

 these seventy-eight schools, in addition to the other four thou- 

 sand. There are ten thousand pupils at one time in the little 

 kingdom of Denmark, half the size of the State of Maine, study- 

 ing agriculture. 



We have only one institution in this state that is definitely 

 teaching agriculture now. Others are beginning to do some- 

 thing. We are very glad of it, and hope there will be more. 

 But we have only to look around this room, and around the 

 exhibits that you have here at this pomological meeting to see 

 some of the eflFects of agricultural instruction right here in our 

 midst. Half a dozen of the leaders in your own work are right 

 here among you. We don't want to brag about ourselves, but 

 we are proud of some of these young men. I think there is not 

 one of them who has been three years away from the agricul- 

 tural school, and yet they are making their mark in the manage- 

 ment of farms, in the department of agriculture, and in other 

 walks of life connected with agriculture. 



The State of Maine, in its legislature last winter, appropriated 

 a small sum of money for the purpose of investigating the needs 

 and advisability of some kind of industrial instruction ; and the 

 state superintendent of schools, together with a committee com- 



