STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 15 



farmer is to be found who devotes his time, capital and energy to 

 those crops which yield the largest and surest returns. 



And one of the brightest of these signs of the times, which point 

 to the progress of our agricultural interests, is the association of 

 these advanced farmers — of yourselves, gentlemen — into the 

 " Maine State Pomological Society," a society whose efforts are 

 directed to increasing the amount and quality of the cultivated 

 fruits adapted to our State, and therefore, necessarily to increasing 

 the profits of farming. Only second to you is the honored Horti- 

 cultural Society of Portland, an association of gentlemen of this 

 "beautiful city by the sea," who have found time in the midst of 

 the pressing and wearing cares of business to make their gardens 

 a little paradise of fruits and flowers ; thus setting a valuable 

 example of beauty and thrift, which has been felt and followed, 

 not only in Portland, but throughout the county of Cumberland. 



It is therefore a pleasure, a great pleasure to me gentlemen, to 

 meet with you at this annual gathering ; for your meetings, your 

 consultations, your discussions, all tend in the right direction — to 

 the good of our beloved Commonwealth. And your exhibition — 

 this brilliant display of fruit and flowers — is beautiful and luscious 

 enough to impress the stranger with the belief that they were 

 plucked in the garden of Eden, and to incite our own citizens 

 in friendly emulation, to plant and set out the best varieties of 

 trees and shrubs, and cultivate them in the best manner, that 

 in future exhibitions they may equal, and perchance excel, in 

 some varieties at least, the magnificent specimens of the exhibition 

 of 1874. 



We have seen that one of the greatest blessings we can confer 

 upon the State, is simply to make farming more profitable and 

 more attractive. To enlarge and improve the orchard and garden 

 are the best means to this end. And it is for this you are met 

 together ; this is the meaning of your societies, your meetings, 

 and this exhibition. Every well wisher to his State, wishes well 

 to you ; for if he vpho causes two blades of grass to grow where 

 but one grew before is a benefactor to his race, most surely are 

 those benefactors who cause fruit to ripen and flowers to bloom, 

 where all was waste or little worth before. And it was this feel- 

 ing, gentlemen, — my good wishes for your good societies — that 

 betrayed me into the indiscretion of addressing you ; for I could 

 not find it in me to refuse your request, though so poorly fitted 

 by the education and work of my life, to instruct or advise ex- 



