lOO THE COXNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



tell you this whole thing has changed since we were boys. 

 The whole thing has tipped over. If I don't bring my six 

 children up so that when they have homes of their own they 

 don't feel it is their duty as citizens to eat six barrels of 

 apples a year, I shall feel that I have fallen short of my duty 

 as a father and citizen. 



I have found a place in Connecticut where as an ordi- 

 nary thing — not extraordinary, mind you — but as a regular 

 thing, wdien the camp-meetings are held in the summer, au- 

 tomobiles come, bringing the wealthy class of people — we 

 will call them the "city-farmer" people — and alongside them 

 comes a load of people drawn by an ox-team. There is not 

 another State in the Union where we can find that state of 

 affairs. Such wide differences as are found here are not to 

 be found anywhere else. Starting from Hartford — where 

 there is more wealth per capita than in any other State or place 

 in the Union- — and go in any direction forty miles, up on the 

 hills or into the valleys, and mark the contrast. There is 

 no other State on earth which presents such wonderful con- 

 trasts as does Connecticut, and in my judgment that is not a 

 condition to be ashamed of. On the other hand, it is one 

 of the most beautiful things, one of the greatest things you 

 could have. You speak of the possibilities of Connecticut, 

 of her richness, her strength and her culture. This is true, 

 and it is a fact that in her strength she is bringing the people 

 of the lower level up, and those of that level are not drawing 

 those on the higher planes down. If you go to Louisiana 

 or Mississippi or Alabama, that cannot be said now, and it 

 will be at least half a century before it will come true and 

 every man will have an opportunity to do his best. But there 

 is no farm in Connecticut that has not an opportunity hang- 

 ing over it readv for the man on that farm to grasp if he will 

 only improve what is before him. Where a man can put on 

 the market such fruit as I see here before me, such opportu- 

 nities ! You don't dream what it all means. In the twelve 

 months ending January 1, we exported from this couiTtry 

 about seventeen million dollars' worth of nuts and fruit. 



