The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1910-03-31

P~sAS1SEakEafsa9lz0 NIITO Iuu Ano
growing potatoes and the producers will
make money. Some will make more
than others; the less careful growers
may find it hard to come out even. New
ertheess, through and through the State,
all the potatoes that can be produced, up
to about fifty times the present produc-
ton of nearly thirty million bushels, will
be good thing for Maine and its people,
and the minor disadvantages will adjust
themselves to conditions.
"While l am on the subject of pota-
toes, | want to remind you of the lesson
that the wonderful crops should teach us.
1t is that what scientific methods have
accomplished with the tubers can be
achieved with other things. | co not
know yet what. | only want to insist on
this that, if the soil and climate
and scientific methods in Maine will pro-
duce three times as many potatoes as can
be produced in any other State in the
union, then those conditions will produce
/ three times as much of something else.
/ We will soon find out what that is, and
then it is your business to tell the world
about it.
"While you are talking about the mag
/ iIiliNCilt NlOJ VI POldlOCS, lOl SSC nv w
speak of Names other advantages Do
not stop with scenery and climate. Those
are important. Talk about them. But
dig in, also, about agricultural opportu
mites and water powers and business
openings. Remind people that the farms
of Maine and other New England States
developed the grandest body of freemen
the world has ever known, and that it is
being done today on those same farms.
l never, in several trips to the far north
west and southwest, saw anything in the
agricultural line to compare with the
comforts and conveniences of the Maine
farms, except in the locations of highest
development, and those are only few.
Your situation is far superior to that of
the average western farmers. 1t is true
that new conditions have arisen and that
new methods are necessary, but you can
cling safely to the facts and at the same
time put halo about everything that
bears the honored name of Maine Boom
everything in the State, but always re-
member that true development in COM
munity like this has its basis in success
full agriculture.
How about apples? That is large
oopJeSI, illooI eoo ldISe W NC CIedleu VI
in these random notes on what is being
done to advance the agricultural int !.
ests and the prosperity of our State.
While it is generally admitted that
Maine-grown apples are superior in flavor
and keeping qualities to those grown
elsewhere the fact remains that apples
grown on the Pacific coast are brought
across the continent by train and sold in
Maine at more than double the price of
the native fruit. That ought not to be.
George W. Brown of Portland recently
returned from western trip, during
which he visited the apple districts of
/ Oregon and Washington, and in paper
read before the Portland Board of
Trade he said ''On the western slope
of the Rocky Mountains, we find
the milder climate, and here is where
We find in the Yakima Valley and
Hood River the greatest apple orchards
that are kept alive and fruitful only by
means of constant irrigation, and it is
from these sections of Washington, and
the Willamette and Rogue River Valleys
of Oregon, that the great handsome,
rich colored fruit that finds its way to
the Atlantic coast comes, and it is
through the shrewdness and ability of
these Pacific coast hustlers that they
have already encroached upon the do
main of our Maine raised apples and
have almost driven them out of the mar
ket. 'Of these western apples Mr.. Brown
says that they are beautiful to look at
and many of them are fine eating, finer
indeed than much of our Maine fruit,
filled with bitter spots, knots and honey
combed with worms, for none of the
fruit that is affected by any sort of
blight is allowed to go to market as first
class fruit there. A box of apples is the
same from top to bottom" A box which
contains about two-thirds of one bushel
of this western fruit sells for $50. A
barrel of Maine apples of three bushels
sells for about $3.50. The difference in
freight alone would make a fair profit.
Mr.. Brown said further:
Maine apples with the trees properly
pruned and cultivated (ground is plowed
four times year on the Pacific Coast
orchard) as they do it in the West, minus
the irrigation mot needed here) looks
just as well, and when you come to eat
ing, tastes hundred times better. The
irrigated, forced, cultivated fruit is often
coarse in grain and fiat in flavor in COM
parison with the fine grained, rich, tasty
Maine fruit and no expert epicurean
taste is necessary to prove it. The loss
of the market to Maine to date need be
no permanent loss to Maine, for the
profit had been cut down to so very small
point that it was not easy to find it.
Names opportunity has come. Thous-
ands of people are eating apples just be-
cause they have had this fine looking Pa
cific fruit introduced to them, and if
Maine will adopt Pacific Coast methods,
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