184 state; pomological society. 



are trying to help the agriculture of Maine as best we know how. 

 Of course the field is large. There are many things that we are 

 trying to do. We hope that we are going to be able in co-opera- 

 tion with this Society to get started in a new line of work along 

 apple propagation, in which there are problems that need a 

 longer life than our honored President has had to live, beyond 

 the length of life of any one man. But we cannot do it upon any 

 land that is under the control of the Experiment Station or the 

 trustees of the University, because we haven't a soil or a climate 

 that is adapted to the best fruit growing. We asked the last 

 legislature through this Society for a farm for that purpose. 

 In the wisdom of the legislature, or rather of the Committee on 

 Agriculture of that legislature, that request was postponed to 

 the next legislature. One of the things that was suggested this 

 afternoon, you remember, was that we don't know but what the 

 Baldwin apple could have been a hardier apple if we had con- 

 fined ourselves to the old original Maine stock. That kind of 

 a problem can never be answered upon private land. It must 

 be where the experiment can be carried out for years under close 

 observation. And so I would like to again state to this Society 

 that I think that that is one of the things that we still, as pro- 

 ducers of fruit in Maine, have a right to ask from this great 

 State, that it shall give a laboratory — by that I mean a farm and 

 the necessary equipment, with orchards upon which we can 

 expend some of this money which we get from the National 

 government for the development of this fruit industry. We 

 shall continue to do all that we can to help along the lines of 

 fungous enemies, along the line of insect enemies ; but we want 

 to take some of these fundamental problems, that must take 

 year after year of patient observation, and that must be under 

 the control absolutely of the Experiment Station — I don't care 

 about the ownership of the land, but the control of it — so that 

 we shall know that an experiment we start today can be carried 

 on year after year until with patience we get the answer. If 

 we are going to solve these things, they must be solved upon land 

 that is under control for a series of years extending, as I say, 

 beyond the life of any one that is now connected with the 

 Experiment Station, I hope. I want to say that the Station is 

 at your control, to do everything that we can in any way; if 



