I04 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



in all the walks of life. Sometimes I think they seem greater 

 than ever. The insect hosts seem to multiply, and the fungous 

 diseases, etc. Our fungous troubles seem to be greater than 

 ever, but it is one of the pleasures which we have in this life 

 to overcome difficulties individually, yet we have all the scien- 

 tific equipment necessary at the Experiment Station to aid us in 

 carrying on this work, and they are always ready to assist us. 

 Sometimes I blame the fruit growers for not intelligently study- 

 ing and assimilating, if I may use that word, the instruction 

 which they receive. 



]My occasion for speaking of this is that I very well remem- 

 ber the first exposition which we had of spraying, or the prin- 

 ciple of spraying, and the results of spraying in the State of 

 Maine. I think the first talk offered in the State of Maine 

 anywhere, was that given at Bangor years ago by Mr. Samuel 

 C. Harlow. You remember who were there. You remember 

 the condition of the fruit which he showed upon the exhibition 

 table. It was the best lot of fruit there was upon the table 

 by far, because it was the most free from insects, scab, etc., no 

 doubt largely or entirely due to the results of his spraying. 

 From that time up to the present, in one form or another, we 

 have kept this subject before the fruit growers of the State, and 

 I am chagrined to see, Mr. President, that so few have taken 

 advantage of what was certainly all in their favor. 



Then there is another trouble. We go to the Experiment Sta- 

 tion sometimes and seek advice from them. We get the advice 

 but we do not understand it. We do not get hold of it, and we 

 go to w^ork and do the thing just wrong, and then out comes an 

 outcry against just the thing they have been teaching there at 

 the Experiment Station, and what practical men know to be true. 

 At Benton Harbor I was reminded of this in a very forcible way, 

 because there was a man who had an orchard of two or three 

 hundred Moore's Arctic plums. The trees were beautiful trees. 

 They were heavily loaded with fruit too, and the proprietor said 

 he would like to have me come over and look at his fruit trees. 

 He would like to know what the trouble was. I went over 

 with a good deal of interest to look at them, and when I got 

 there I found upon those trees there was hardly a single plum 

 but that had suffered injury from some cause. T asked him 

 what he had done for the trees during the year, and he said 



