92 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



with orchards, not only beautifying your landscape, but becom- 

 ing a source of profit to the individual owners, and adding fame 

 to your already glorious state. There is no crop, with perhaps 

 the exception of the hay crop, which can be more generally and 

 successfully grown in the State of Maine than the apple. It is 

 your most permanent asset, next to the hay crop. 



The other evening, through the slides thrown upon the screen, 

 I showed you something in regard to the renovation of old 

 orchards. That is a necessary step — the care of the orchards 

 that you already have. But I shall assume that you are going 

 to do something for them, that you are going to wake up, take 

 a new lease of life and do something for those old trees that 

 have been started by the wayside and in the fence corners, and 

 still live, and give you some apples every fall. The apple crop 

 brings in hundreds and thousands of dollars and I shall assume 

 that you will take care of the trees you already have. 



Now how about starting the young orchard ? I presume that 

 I am talking to three classes of listeners here today. Tliere are 

 first the farmers and fruit growers, in which class I am. I am 

 a farmer, and am simply making a specialty of the growing of 

 the apple. Then there are the business men here, who may 

 desire to take up the growing of the apple as a business propo- 

 sition. I find that class of people greatly increasing throughout 

 New England. I have a great number of clients whom I am 

 serving in helping establish orchards and get things into busi- 

 ness shape, because they realize that sometime they want to 

 leave their business or their profession, and they want some 

 place to go, and it seems to be their choice to establish an orchard 

 and so provide for the future. And I am glad to see that class 

 of people increasing. It is a gratifying sign for the uplifting 

 of agricultural conditions in New England, because that class, 

 as a rule, bring to their work and into this life methods which 

 they have followed, and habits which they have acquired, which 

 among our farming people are perhaps too many times lacking. 

 Then again, there is the class which I may call the capitalist. 

 I long for the day when capital may become interested in agri- 

 cultural projects in New England, and when capitalists may take 

 hold of these things and conduct them as our manufacturing 

 establishments and our large banking establishments are con- 

 ducted — along business lines. I long for the time when the 



