STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. IO3 



through which, as you may know, a larger part of the fruit 

 prockict of the State of Michigan goes to market. I was inter- 

 ested in everything I saw there, and I studied the situation with 

 the keenest dehght. Everywhere the land seemed to be appro- 

 priated either to some kind of fruit growing or some market 

 garden truck. Acres and acres of grapes were spread out 

 before me, and as I stood on an elevated place at one time it 

 seemed to me I could see more than a thousand acres of grape 

 vines. I met one man there who had been a railroad engineer 

 all his life. His wife thought he had been in the business long 

 enough. She wanted to get her children away from the asso- 

 ciations by which they were surrounded, and she prevailed upon 

 him to give up his work on the railroad and go to Benton Har- 

 bor and purchase a farm. He purchased a twenty acre fruit 

 farm in Benton Harbor, for which he paid in cash the sum of 

 $10,500. That is how much a fruit farm is worth on the shores 

 of Lake Michigan. 



Now in my county, in the town of Temple is an orchard 

 which I think is one of the best orchards in the State of Maine, 

 of its size. This year the owner of that orchard has harvested 

 about 1200 barrels of apples. Within sight of that farm, almost, 

 there are thousands and thousands of acres of land that are 

 just as good as his. I don't know but the land is just as good 

 as it is in Benton Harbor. It can be bought for from $5.00 to 

 $10.00 an acre. 



So much has been said about the possibilities of fruit growing 

 in Maine that I feel like calling attention to this and drawing 

 the contrast. Now at Benton Harbor the price of fruit was 

 remarkably low. I didn't see how they could grow strawberries 

 as cheaply as they sold them and make anything on them. I 

 didn't see how they could grow raspberries and cherries and 

 other fruit so they could make anything out of them. But they 

 told me when they got around to the close of the year they 

 found that a good balance was in their favor all the time, be- 

 cause there was always a ready market for everything they could' 

 produce and get started for the city of Chicago. I believe there 

 are many opportunities for doing a similar work here in the 

 State of Maine. 



The difficulties in the growing of fruit are very great, but 

 these difficulties, or similar difficulties, are peculiar to success 



