STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 39 



ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN E. GODFREY, 



Before the Maine State romological Society, at its Annual Meeting, at Bangor, 

 September 17th, 1873. 



" It is a wonderful age !" This is a common remark. It has 

 been a common remark, probably, in every generation since the 

 commencement of civilization, perhaps since the creation of man. 

 " It is a wonderful age !" said Adam, when after a long life of 

 loneliness, he one morning awoke and beheld before him that fitir 

 creation from his rib, Eve. "It is a wonderful age 1" said Eve, 

 on opening her eyes after partaking of the fruit 6f the tree of 

 knowledge of good and evil. 



What makes an age wonderful ? What is called its improve- 

 ment — or, rather, its iuiproved fruits, the choicest, best, most 

 satisfactory products of the thought and labor of man and of the 

 elaborations of nature. 



It is with the latter that we have to do — the fruits of the earth 

 most grateful to the palate of man. It is for "their development 

 and improvement ; to make them more agreeable to the taste, 

 consequently more profitable to the pocket and a credit and benefit 

 to the State — in a word, to do something in this particular enter- 

 prise towards rendering the age "wonderful" in Maine, that 

 this society has been organized 



The science of pomology, though greatly advanced in some 

 countries, has not received that full attention in Maine to which 

 its importance entitles it. Indeed, it can hardly be said to have 

 obtained much more than a foothold. E^w persons have given 

 their undivided attention to the culture and amelioration of fruits. 



The truth is, that Maine has been loitering in this enterprise as 

 it has been in almost every other, except the manufacture of lum- 

 ber. The wealth supposed to exist in her forests has absorbed 

 the attention of her people to the neglect of the enterprises which 

 are at the foundation of the permanent prosperity of a State. 



Why is it that Maine, with a territory as large as all New Eng- 

 land beside, and with a soil more fertile, is so far behind the State 

 of Massachusetts with a soil greatly inferior, with a territory not 

 much larger than one of the counties of Maine and with a climate 

 nearly the same ? Is it because there is less intellectual vigor, 

 less physical strength, less inventive genius ? No, for go all over 

 the United States — into Massachusetts even — and there may be 



