STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. jg 



ought to be, what they might easily be made to be ? And last 

 and most, is there .that keen, eager, wide-awake interest in farm- 

 ing on the part of the greater portion of our farmers themselves, 

 which the merchant, the manufacturer and the shipper give to 

 their callings and which is a condition indispensable to success? 



These questions must all be answered No I and of this foct no 

 persons are more painfully aware than the intelligent farmers of 

 Maine themselves. Indeed, the lack of interest in the quiet and 

 peaceful occupation of husbandry is the most serious obstacle in 

 the pathway of the progress and prosperity of Maine. Look a 

 moment at some of the results of this indifference and antipathy 

 to agriculture I Our farming villages are not increasing in popu- 

 lation, business or importance. Most of our farms, especially in 

 the older counties, are worth no more and produce no more to-day 

 than ten years ago. In some places adjoining farms, which 

 twenty years gone by supported two families, are now carried on 

 by one, with one set of buildings vacant, windows boarded up, — • 

 all lapsing to decay. The old school-house in the woods which 

 twenty years ago rang with shouts of a hundred merry children 

 when the tasks of the day were done, is replaced, perhaps, by a 

 larger, more imposing, modern structure at the cross roads, but 

 the children for whom the school-house is built have dwindled to 

 a score. 



And the youth of our State, where are they ? Few indeed 

 remain on the old homestead, to replace with the vigor of their 

 young years the failing strength of the father and mother, who 

 have reared them. They swarm like bees from parent hives, and 

 betake themselves to our larger towns, our cities and to the broader 

 fields of the great West, too often, we have good reason to fear, 

 to live on the husks they would have scorned at home ; yet for all 

 this seldom do they exhibit the good sense of the prodigal son, 

 and return to their father. The exodus of the sons of Maine is so 

 large that the remark "you find Maine men in every State in the 

 Union," has passed into an adage. In most cases they are men 

 of whom we may well be proud ; men who are leaders in society, 

 politics and business ; men, who calling into action the vigor 

 gained on our rocky hills, and in our northern clime, have con- 

 tributed in large measure to the development and prosperity of 

 the communities in which they live. 



Now this may be a gain to our nation, considered as a whole, 

 it is most assuredly a gain to these new communities ; but what is 



