80 STATE POMOLOGICaL SOCIETY. 



you how we are situated iu regard to fruit growing to-day, I shall 

 have to ask you to use my eyes. I wish we might regard it a 

 pleasant day in June, and ride over these hills and valleys, up and 

 down the length of Piscataquis county ; we could see very quickly 

 what the condition of fruit culture here is to-day. But if you will 

 take the picture from me, I will attempt to present it to you as 

 concisely as I can. Our frait culture in Piscataquis county is a 

 good deal mixed. We have to-day those old orchards planted by 

 the pioneers. I have been astonished as I have passed through 

 this county from east to west and from north to south, to see that 

 almost every one of the pioneer farmers planted large orchards. 

 They came from Oxford county, New Hampshire, and other places 

 where they were accustomed to have plenty of fruit, and one of 

 the first things they did was to plant apple seeds and raise nursery 

 stock . 



This was done in every town, and these old orchards remain until 

 this day. Many of them have been scarred with the tooth of time, 

 but they yet remain, and if you ride over these hills you will see 

 them, not only on farms now occupied, but on farm after farm, and 

 what has been home after home you will see apple trees growing 

 among the spruces, cedars and hard wood growth ; and you will 

 wonder how these old broken trees came here, still showiug evidence 

 of life, expanding their limbs to the breeze and getting what they 

 can of mother earth though crowded and hidden by these forest 

 trees. And possibly at the season of the year when you see the 

 apple blossoms you will see among brambles and briers a rose in 

 bloom and a few flowers of the hardier sort. You will see where 

 once a garden smiled, and still many a garden flower grows wild. 



These abandoned places were the homes of thrifty families many 

 years ago. They took up nearly all of these lands and raised large 

 families ; but these boys and girls discovered that after the land 

 had been cleared, it was extremely rocky and hard, and they have 

 sought for better fields ; and we find them in our villages and in 

 the West, but not on these old farms. 



I wish to say in regard to the New York trees of which Brother 

 Chamberlain spoke, that I rescued a few of those trees from the 

 brush heap. He has forgotten that I took from his nursery several 

 hundred trees and planted them, and have to-day a very fine 

 orchard. 



Many of these New York trees were brought in by the tree ven- 

 der, who came with his picture book and wonderful trees, and every 



