l8 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



as it may seem, you will find certain sections of ]\laine marked 

 upon that map as the place where apple trees grow wild. 



The State of Maine has the advantage of the natural re 

 source. The country has all been explored and settled and the 

 period of large emigration from one section to another is 

 passed, and it stands every locality in hand to develop to its 

 fullest extent what it can do best. Pennsylvania has been doing 

 this with both coal and iron ; Maine has done it for years with 

 her lumber ; and the great prairies of the West and Middle West 

 are furnishing the cereals for feeding not only our ninety mil- 

 lions of people but many in foreign lands. It is said that the 

 Riverside district of California produces three-fourths of all the 

 oranges, lemons and grape-fruit produced in the United States, 

 and some sections of Washington and Oregon have undertaken 

 to furnish all the apples eaten in America, and no one will doubt 

 their ability to produce them in great quantities. But there is 

 no state in the Union that can produce the good apples, that i.'^, 

 apples with the fine flavor and keeping qualities, as the State 

 of Maine, and there is no land for sale in any other state at 

 as low prices, that is better adapted for apple raising than is 

 much land found in Maine. 



But as we go about the State and notice these apple trees on 

 the difl-'crent farms and by the roadsides, we are all shocked 

 at the lack of care and cultivation which these trees are getting. 

 An occasional farm shows that its owner appreciates the value 

 of his orchard, but the most of the trees are unpruned, the 

 ground lacks cultivation, the leaves of the trees indicate the 

 lack of fertilizer, and too often insects of different kinds are 

 plainly visible within their branches. The object lesson as 

 taught by the State Farm in Leeds, commonly known as High- 

 moor Farm, during the past two or three years has been seen by 

 many and its value has been far reaching, although not yet 

 known by any very large majority of our rural population. 

 The State is too large for any such lesson as is being taught 

 there in this short time to be brought home to a great extent 

 to the farmers of the State. Its influence must spread like in- 

 fection, by affecting a farmer here and there in different parts 

 of the State, wdio in turn shall make a similar object lesson 

 for his neighbors to see. Thus in time by such teaching may 



