STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 41 



our enterprising yonng.men, Maine will bear oif the palm over any 

 State in the Union in the production of fruit for exportation or 

 shipping purposes to any part of the world. 



All fruits are extensively used for culiniary purposes, and es- 

 pecially enter into and are largely used as articles of diet. And 

 in a financial point of view, fruit growing will well compare with 

 any other agricultural pursuit in Maine. 



It is also ennobling, refining and elevating to our natures, and 

 places us in harmony with the Great Author of our being, who 

 when He formed man planted a garden (it is said) filled with all 

 manner of fruit trees and flowers, and our primeval parents were 

 placed in it to cultivate and eat of the fruit of all the trees of the 

 garden save the tree of excess or abuse, " whose mortal taste 

 brought death into the world and all our woes;" and that tree of 

 excess is well cared for and persistently cultivated among us at 

 the present day, and it is hoped that all pomologists will discard 

 it from their list of fruits, for its fruit is bitter, and if engrafted 

 nothing but bitter fruit will take and grow in it. It is, however, 

 perfectly hardy, and never winter kills. 



Even nearly all the lower animals, from the smallest insect to 

 the feathered songsters of the air, are great lovers of fruit. Now, 

 (as an example to encourage others to go and do likewise), I will 

 say, that last summer I raised on one-eighth of an acre of land, 

 875 quarts of strawberries, equal to 271 bushels, or 220 bushels 

 per acre ; consequently had an abundance to spare for the robins, 

 who would carol to me in sweetest lays, therefore I had no heart 

 or disposition to disturb or deprive them of the privilege, as 

 they seemed to share with me the "pleasure and the pride," and 

 would richly repay me for the fruit they ate, in destroying worms 

 and noxious insects ; and I was often led to say with the poet 

 Pope, that 



" Just as short of reason he must fall. 



Who thinks all made for one, not one for all." 



Thus, in growing such beautiful and abundant crops of fruit, we 

 have the consciousness of being benefactors, not only to our own 

 race, but to the lower animal creation as well ; also of verifying 

 the oft repeated truth, that what one man has done by working in 

 harmony with the fixed, immutable laws of Nature, another can 

 produce the same results ; that cause and effect are stamped on all 

 nature's works, — our own as well. 



And here permit me to say, that all discarded fruit (not suitable 



