40 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 



define the limits beyond which the good qualities ot Maine products 

 are not well known and appreciated. Every year across the great 

 ocean mighty steamships carry thousands of barrels of these tempt- 

 ing spheres which have budded, blossomed and fruited on the fertile 

 hillsides of this State. Unmindful of Bunker Hill and the battle- 

 fields of 1812, in return (or bullets and grape-shot which made chil- 

 dren fatherless and mothers and children homeless, we send back to 

 our English cousins bullets and grape-shot of tempting exterior 

 carrying assurances of life and health and strength and good cheer ,^ 

 and it takes across the water with it a message of God speed, and 

 carries with it a breath and aroma of freedom and liberty to that 

 great kingdom which must inevitably follow the example set by its 

 precocious colony and lay aside the monarchical form of government 

 and take its place in the rapidly swelling ranks of the republics of 



the world. 



I have learned to appreciate the fruits of Maine fully. I was 

 located for manj' months in the South where the vtlvety peach 

 waved before my eyes, the pineapple with its palatable interior lay 

 at my feet, the orange yellow and safiron, almost bursting with its 

 pent-up sweetnes, snodded to me on every band, the grape fruit 

 demanded my recognition and the persimmon, creamy and sweet 

 fell around me ; but I would willingly have given them all for a 

 taste of a good Maine apple. In the lar West 1 made my home 

 and the luscious fruit of the western country threatened my fealt^^ 

 and lay claim to my appreciation, but I would have bartered all of 

 these prides of the Pacific for a lipe, juicy apple. I seemtd to see 

 as in a mirage the picture of my own state. I could see its produc- 

 tive iarms and the heavy laden orchards in the sunshine. I saw 

 the Nodhead as it beckoned to me over some rustic fence. I saw 

 the old reliable Baldwin, suggestive to me cf the days when it 

 played so important a part in filling the depths of the capacious 

 Christmas stocking borrowed for the purpose. I remembered the 

 days of my boyhood when the well-filled barrel of apples was placed 

 in the cellar. I recollected how forth to school I went with pockets 

 bulging out with well selected favorites. I have experienced joys 

 and sorrows, I have met successes and reverses, I have made money 

 and lost money since then, but never have I experienced sucb 

 strong satisfaction as when my capacious barns were filled almost to 

 the bursting point with the products of my own orchard. Never 

 did I so sincerely regret the reverses of fortune as when I lost my 

 beloved watercore and found a decayed interior. 



