48 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



trees. But the real trouble was the lack of a true appreciation 

 of what the business required ; the owner was a man of more than 

 ordinary intelligence, and he knew the nature and requirements of 

 the apple tree as well as any man, but he knew the theory better 

 than the practice ; he knew that he had not the time nor the means 

 to give the trees proper and sufficient pruning ; he knew that he 

 could not, or rather that he did not, protect his trees from deep, 

 drifting snows, and he knew that the land selected for his nursery', 

 though naturally a good soil, needed to be thoroughly underdrained ; 

 and knowing all this he continued for awhile to raise and sell trees, 

 good, bad and indifferent, but failing to receive that patronage 

 which he expected, he went out of the business, laying the blame 

 wholly upon the western tree vender, not realizing then, and perhaps 

 not now, that the real seat of the difficulty was at his own door. 

 It is impossible to raise good, sound trees on undrained soil ; the}' 

 will give dissatisfaction sooner or later. I said that some failed 

 from a want of knowledge, but this man had some knowledge, and 

 yet he failed to comprehend what the business required and what the 

 farmers required. And still another nursery has but recently gone 

 up, or been sold out because the proprietors cannot properly attend 

 to the business ; more likely I should say, because the}' do not 

 understand the business. It is a business that requires not onl}' a 

 knowledge of some things, but a knowledge of a good many things, 

 and the good many things we will come to by and by. Others 

 might be named, but doubtless the failures which have come under 

 m,y notice are but a part of the great bulk of failures throughout the 

 State. 



The third reason why the nursery business in Maine has failed to 

 secure the best results, is because some have resorted to it only as a 

 temporary expedient or speculation. Not having the time or inclina- 

 tion to give it the study and investigation which it requires, they 

 have carried it on in the most slovenly and slipshod manner pos- 

 sible, and the consequence has been, that the public has either given 

 them a wide berth or purchased sparingly of their wai-es. 



Now, what I mean by a temporary' resort, is this : some farmer 

 imagines that he can sow a small plat of ground with apple-pumice 

 seed and raise a nursery of trees which will supply, not only himself, 

 but his neighbors and a portion of the public ; that he can do this 

 without much trouble or expense and reap a little pecuniary benefit, 

 in fact that he can sandwich this in somehow and somewhere among 



