STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 47 



attached to certain trees, and on inquiring of the coachman its 

 meaning, was told that it was to protect the fruit from pilferers. 

 The traveller expressed surprise, and remarked that from his ex- 

 perience the sign would serve to attract those pestilent people. 

 The reply was, simply, " Have you no schools in America ?" 



Was the moral sentiment in regard to the property in growing 

 fruit always so lax in this country as it is now ? Some, who used 

 to read in the venerated Noah Webster Spelling Book, the fable 

 of the old man who found a rude boy upon one of his trees steal- 

 ing apples, may recollect the effect of that lesson upon the juve- 

 ■ nile mind and insist that it was not. Perhaps it was not. Would 

 it not be well to introduce that excellent old rudimentary book 

 into our schools again, and see if its lessons may not operate 

 favorablj' to the protection of the fruit of the future ? 



Gentlemen of the Poniological Society and Fellow Citizens : — A 

 bright future is in store for Maine, — croakers to the contrary not- 

 withstanding. We may well believe this when we constantly see 

 in our newspapers, items like the following : 



"Fourteen years ago, B. F. Hughes went to Aroostook county 

 with a few household goods and forty-five cents in money. He 

 has now a farm of fifty-five acres of cleared land, good buildings, 

 a young orchard, five cows, two horses, nineteen sheep, twenty 

 acres of crops and eight children. Of course, he has no desire to 

 go West." 



Pains, pluck and perseverance accomplish everything. They 

 made Massachusetts, they will make Maine. And when our 

 young men learn, as they will, that her various branches of agri- 

 cultural industry are sure roads to respectability ami wealth — 

 and that the intelligent proprietors of the soil are the leading men 

 of the country — as they are in Europe, and, if not now, are des- 

 tined to be in America — it will be a happy day for them and for 

 her; they will not then turn their backs with (^onternpt upon her 

 broad acres, but will apply their best energies to their cultivation 

 and development. And, when ft-om the lines of railway extending 

 from her eastern to her western border, from the river St. John 

 on the north to the ocean, there shall be visible on either hand 

 finely cultivated and fruit-garnished fields, the results of their 

 labors and the admiration of the passing traveller, instead of the 

 forests, stump wastes, bogs and desolate pasture grounds, that 

 now prevail, the gratitude of a great and happy people will follow 

 them, and enthusiastic souls will have some reason for the excla- 

 mation that they live in a " wonderful age." 



