STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 35 



enced. Either alone would for the time dampen the ardor of fruit 

 growers, but when combined tended still less to enthusiasm in our 

 organization and its object. Then, as trouble is said never to 

 come single handed, a severe gale blew off a large portion of the 

 unprecedentedly small quantity of inferior fruit upon the trees. 

 Under such conditions it has been far more difficult to awaken 

 enthusiasm, and to draw together fruit growers and their fruit/ 

 than would have been the case in more favorable seasons. The 

 results of our efforts in this direction are before you. While the 

 contributions are neither so extensive nor so numerous as we 

 could desire, and while the quality of many of the specimens is 

 not up to the standard of highest excellence, yet it is believed you 

 will pronounce the exhibition as a whole, under existing condi- 

 tions, creditable to our infant society, if not an honor to the State. 

 While we are assembled at this inaugural meeting of our Society, 

 it may be well to make a public statement of our aims and pur- 

 poses. The organic act of the Legislature incorporated us a 

 Society "for the promotion of fruit culture." While keeping our 

 purpose ever in view, we are to search out the various methods by 

 which the object aimed at is to be accomplished : 



1st. We must encourage more extensive planting. Land devoted 

 to the growing of fruit, especially apples and peai's, is profitable 

 beyond almost any other production to which it can be devoted. 

 There is hardly a limit to which it may not be carried in our State. 

 The demand for good winter apples, to the production of which 

 our climate and soil are especially adapted, can never be over-sup- 

 plied. Were the production increased a thousand fold, the demand 

 would keep pace with the supply. With our present facilities for 

 transportation to tide waters, the markets of the world are open 

 to our product and invite to a greatly increased production. 

 While New York was last fall shipping over a hundred thousand 

 barrels a week, we had hardly enough to draw the attention of 

 shippers or to create a market. And this in the face of the fact 

 that we can produce as good shipping apples as any State in the 

 Union. There are thousands of acres of land in almost every 

 township in the State — good fruit lands — now of trifling value, 

 which should be devoted exclusively to the production of fruit. 

 They would be immensely enhanced in value and the wealth and 

 prosperity of the State be correspondingly increased. Fruit 

 growing requires no expensive machinery, does not exhaust the 



