34 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



great age and size, and of great value to the student of exotics, there was so 

 little space devoted to the display of model plants of the classes more generally 

 interesting to a large class of flower-loving people, and calculated to make them 

 acquainted, not only with the varieties of plants best adapted to this purpose, 

 but especially with the varied forms into which they are susceptible of being 

 wrought under the deft lingers of the practical culturist. 



The Creator has inseparably associated the flower with the fruit, by combin- 

 ing the offices of both in the perpetuation of the kind through the production 

 of the seed. Not so much with man in general, and certainly not so with the 

 Centennial commission. Justice also compels us to add, not so with our State 

 Agricultural Society at its annual fairs; and we may also add, not so even with 

 our State Pomological Society; else why is it Pomological, merely, instead of 

 Horticultural? 



Pomology, in common with Horticulture, seems to have been overlooked in 

 the original programme of the Exposition, and no provision was made for its 

 especial wants in the agricultural departments, of which it was held to be an 

 adjunct, till a comparatively late period, when an "'annex,'' — a simple pen 

 with a roof to shelter the table, — -was constructed adjacent to agricultural hall; 

 in which was displayed the fruits alone, disassociated from everything calcu- 

 lated, by adventitious attractiveness to invite, and thus educate other than fruit 

 fanciers by supplying additional motives for a visit to the "annex." 



We regret to be compelled to remark that if we except some of our leading 

 Horticultural societies (and to some extent possibly even by them), there seems 

 to have been a partial forgctfulness of the fact that the great object for which 

 such public exhibits should be held must be, so far as the public are concerned, 

 largely an educational one ; and hence that the study should be to attract the 

 crowd — with the hope of begetting interest on the part of those who may need 

 other motives to call their attention to a display of this character. The central 

 position of the beautiful hall of Horticulture, with its admirable surroundings, 

 not for this reason onlv, but also on account of the very natural associations be- 

 twecn the two, would have rendered this a most appropriate spot to be consti- 

 tuted the headquarters also of Pomology; by either providing space under the 

 roof of the main Horticultural Hall, or an annex, if found more convenient or 

 desirable, instead of making it an adjunct of Agricultural Hall, and locating it 

 in an out-of-the-way place where many would fail to visit it from mere lack of 

 interest necessary to learn its real location. 



The true pomologist is not merely a lover of fruit; and few persons will be 

 found, worthy of the name, who are not lovers of trees and plants as well. Be- 

 sides the student of Pomology, if he would be really successful, will find the 

 necessity imposed upon him of becoming a student also of the peculiarities of 

 growth in inflorescence as well as of fructification — a fact that points strongly 

 to the propriety, not to say necessity, of keeping up an association between the 



t\V(>. 



With a judicious association of the exhibits of Pomology and Horticulture, it 

 will be difficult to overestimate the importance of the lessons that would, by 

 these means, have been impressed upon the minds of many who greatly need to 

 profit by wisdom of this character; hut who, like too many who are workiog in 

 the dark in the broad field of botanical reproduction, for lack of a discriminat- 

 ing knowledge of the great principles upon which nature conducts such 

 operations, seem, to a great extent, to be wasting their energies in unproductive 

 operations. 



