8o STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



department of the United States, like Dr. Webber, or Dr. 

 Swingle, who are really doing as much for building up the wel- 

 fare and prosperity of this country as any men in the so-called 

 commercial or political life. 



If I were to ask you who is the greatest man in New Eng- 

 land, I can hardly guess whom you w^ould mention. New Eng- 

 land has produced many great men, and there are a great many 

 famous Xew^ Englanders at the present time. You might point 

 to your own senators in Washington. You might point to your 

 own governor. You might point to Aldrich, of Rhode Island. 

 You might point to some Massachusetts great men. But I am 

 here to say this morning that there are farmers in New Eng- 

 land that are as famous the country over as any politician in her 

 limits. 



I am thinking of one man in particular now, and that is J. H. 

 Hale. I came from the West, and I heard of J. H. Hale, the 

 big fruit grower of New England before I heard of Aldrich. I 

 heard of that Hale before I heard of Eugene Hale of this r.tate^ 

 the senator. And J. H. Hale is a farmer. 



If I were to ask you who are the biggest men, the most looked- 

 up-to men, in Oxford County, I cannot say who would be named. 

 There are a number of men of state reputation, at least, in the 

 County of Oxford at the present time. There might be some 

 dry goods men among them. There might be some grocery 

 men among them. There might be some proprietors of planing 

 mills, or of lumber mills, or shoe factories, or representatives of 

 other industries among them. But I dare say there would be a 

 good liberal proportion of farmers among them, men who are 

 raising apples and potatoes and cattle. 



I mention these things because young people often get the 

 idea that to be famous they have got to be in politics, or that to 

 make big men out of themselves they must enter one of the 

 commercial lines. That is not the case. The men who can 

 grow apples like those on exhibition here in a twenty acre 

 orchard or a fifty acre orchard (and it is within the power of 

 any one and every one of you) is destined to be more famous 

 at the end of ten years, or twenty-five years, when you will be 

 right in the prime of your life, than the man who is ward boss 

 or county politician, or the man who is running your biggest 

 shoe factory, or biggest lumber mill. For this is the kind of 

 industry that is developing at the present time. 



