117 



be laid by hand and placed in position and sledged firmly 

 in place. Before patting on the broken stone, it is well 

 to put on a slight covering of loam, to keep the founda- 

 tion firml}^ in place, and after the broken stone is put on. 

 the roller should be kept at work until the road is per- 

 fectly hard. Here he gave a brief resume of the New 

 Jersey State road laws in all their workings, from the first 

 up to date. President Appleton invited Mayor Rantoul to 

 ijpeak on the subject of roads and he responded by saying 

 that we must remember that the soil in New Jersey was 

 very much different from the soil in Essex County, ]\Iass. 

 He made a plea for Avide tires to wheels which was a 

 roller of itself when going over the road instead of open- 

 ing a rut and advanced the idea of the county owning 

 one or more of the improved costly road machines and 

 loaning them to the smaller country towns. 



The afternoon meeting was called to order at 1.30 

 o'clock, when President x\ppleton introduced Hon. Peter 

 M. Neal of Lynn, who spoke on fruit in general, and 

 pears in particular. The speaker began by saying that 

 knowledge is the accumulation in a vast storehouse, and 

 we may, as the Essex Agricultural Society, go there and 

 take out what we will. 



Fruit seems to have been the food of primeval man. 

 The peach is superior, however, and what is more delic- 

 ious than a fine dish of peaches ; but pears are of longer 

 duration, he having had pears all the year round. The 

 pear is like sponge cake, and the apple like bread, the 

 staff of life. The pear is the fruit for the few, the apple 

 for the million. By this he does not wish to disparage 

 the pear, but to give it its proper place. Essex County 

 raises more pears than any other county in Massachusetts, 

 As has been said before, Lynn looks like a city that has 

 gone out into the country to spend the summer. The 

 speaker then said he now had too many pears, and too 

 few apples. The pear is a very ancient fruit, three hun- 



