STATE POMOLOQICAL SOCIETY. 1I5 



All the merit of the art was hidden by the uncouth surroundings. 

 The arrangement in an exhibition of fruits and flowers is one of 

 the fine arts, so to speak, and its effect on the niind depends much 

 on the surroundings. These surroundings were out of place. In 

 the paper presented this forenoon upon landscape gardening, the 

 point was made that certain things should not be in proximity to 

 certain other things. The vegetable garden should not be upon the 

 lawn, but in some out-of-the-way place. So cabbages and potatoes 

 should not be exhibited in immediate connection with fruit. Good 

 taste can be manifested, as we see upon the tables before us, in the 

 exhibition of flowers with fruit, but never of coarse articles. 



One remark also in regard to the efforts of Michigan to show 

 her fruits in the East. Now we ought to copy from Michigan in 

 one direction — we ought to possess some of her enthusiasm. 

 Much of the enthusiasm of Michigan was transported from Maine. 

 Many men did we find who took pride in exhibiting her fruits. 

 They are aware that the success of fruit growing in their State 

 depends on an Eastern market, and therefore they are anxious to 

 make a favorable impression on Eastern people, that the markets 

 may be open to their fruits. Hence they run their exhibition, so 

 to speak, regardless of cost. They cared not that the State ap- 

 propriated only $5,000 to sustain it, they went on with the sanction 

 of the State officers, until they had then exceeded a cost of $10,000. 

 Will they not be rewarded ? Will not those men who went to 

 Michigan from Maine, now that an Eastern market is made for 

 their fruits, reap a reward for such efforts ? In common Yankee 

 parlance, " won't it pay ?" Of course it will. And if we exer- 

 cise the activity that they do in growing their fruits and the per- 

 severance that they do in seeking a market, would it not pay us ? 

 I think the answer, "yes," is the one that applies to us in our 

 favorable position. Their Pomological Society holds its exhibition 

 in connection with the State Agricultural Society, and the State 

 Society gives them a certain amount of money annually for their 

 part of the exhibition. They give them $1,500 a year generally. 

 That is the encouragement which they give to Pomology there. 

 They recognize its pre-eminent importance. One of your promi- 

 nent fruit growers said here to-day that Kennebec county, so long 

 famous for its fruits, is not producing so many barrels of market- 

 able fruit as she was twenty years ago — not because of the acci- 

 dents of the two years past, but because your trees are not suffi- 

 cient to produce as many apples as were produced twenty years 



