100 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



ket more rapidly than the pine. If the destruction is going on 

 with the spruce more than with the pine, the pine is very likely to 

 survive the spruce. 



Jn 1848 or 1849 I had occasion in passing from Augusta to this 

 place to accompany a gentleman of very much greater age than 

 myself, and a man of some distinction at that time in the county. 

 I think it was in the town of Benton that we passed through a 

 growth of young pine, — they were perhaps six or eight inches in 

 diameter. When we came into that growth he said to me (he was 

 a man who was reai-ed in Fairfield) "When I was a boy this was a 

 corn field, and the old corn hills can be seen here to-day." 



We stopped and took some observations, and there were little 

 billets that looked like the old-fashioned corn hills. I did not have 

 occasion to pass over that road again until 1864 or 1865 and then 

 it was in the winter, and I found that the lumbermen were actually 

 cutting off sizable logs for the saw mill to be manufactured into 

 boards. I remember another instance some years prior, in 1843 or 



1844, I was at and there was a very fine growth of young 



pine standing on a point that made right into the lake. I know of 

 a man who went upon that point and examined the trees, and came 

 to the conclusion that there was not a tree there that was fit to cut 

 for lumber. About 1860 I had occasion to visit the lake in the 

 winter time and men were hauling off heavy lumber and driving it 

 down the river to Old Town. Now, wherever this soil is adapted 

 to pine, we shall find when that land is left to itself, the pine will 

 spring up and mature. I have every reason to believe from the old 

 pines that I used to meet with when in the woods, that pine is a 

 natural growth of our soil, and when the pine shall cease to grow 

 in Maine we shall no longer need a national garland. 



Mrs. Beedy — Now I will sum up what I think to be the points 

 in this discussion : We should select the pine as our floral emblem 

 on account of its historical value. I think the children in every 

 school room should be asked to describe our State seal. I wonder 

 how many in this audience can tell exactly how many things are 

 engraven upon it. If you should look at it you would see that the 

 only thing on the background is the pine. It was the pine tree 

 that made our State ; it was the great giants and monarchs of the 

 forest that attracted the King of England to this country. He 

 sent out his emissaries to select them for his masts. 



I was very much interested to sit at the feet of a gentleman 

 almost ninety years of age, and have him tell me about those old 



