294 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



continue to be, a very wide diversity of wants among the numerous classes of 

 planters, wiiether for farm or family i)urpose, with or without a surplus for sale, 

 for city or village gardens, for vilhige or country markets, witli or without 

 succession, and for commercial orciiards, with or without succession, with the 

 added consideration that wo must farther recognize the varying wants of the 

 different localities as well as tiie peculiar demands of diiTerent tastes even in the 

 same family or locality, and especially wlien we reileet that such a catalogue 

 must necessarily become the indication by means of whicli, to a greater or less 

 extent, the success of varieties in our State, and, as a consecpience, the capacity 

 of the State for fruit culture will come to be estimated abroad ; whether we 

 should next act ui)on the condition that while the fullest prominence- siiould be 

 given in such catalogue to market varieties of fruits as sucli, and while it must 

 be held to be of the utmost importance that these market sorts be so fully and 

 perfectly characterized as such tliat they shall stand forth in such catalogue as 

 a distinctive class with the relative (pialities and comparative values of such 

 carefully and accurately defined, this same catalogue should, on the other hand, 

 become a magazine of information in which the various classes of other planters, 

 for whatever purjwse, may search not merely for information what to plant, 

 and that whether their needs shall cover a broad or a narrow field, but where, 

 to some extent, they may learn what not to plant, so far at least, as a very 

 considerable class of common, but undesirable varieties, may be concerned. 



VALUE OF A (;00I) CATALOGUE. 



It may possibly be said that to place such varieties in such catalogue is at 

 least to some extent to encourage the planting of them, but to those who have 

 studied tlie proposed plan it will only be needful to say that the mere insertion 

 of the name of a fruit in such a catalogue, while its value siiall be placed at 

 or near zero, can hardly be said to be an encouragement to plant it, while those 

 Avho, from having seen such variety in unexceptionably favorable circumstances, 

 may have formed too high an estimate of its value, will thus become warned to 

 look farther before proceeding to plant it. Such would at least be the result, 

 if })roper use be made of the proposed column for marginal notes. A similar 

 result might, however, be secured by the introduction of varieties of the 

 character indicated in a subsidiary or appended list similarly arranged and in 

 which the family peculiarities of this class of varieties might receive more 

 especial prominence than would be deemed admissible in the catalogue i)roper. 



THE OUTLOOK. 



I might, in conclusion, remind the Society that the field in which it is laboring 

 is a very broad one, and that with each advancing step new vistas of labor and 

 usefulness are sure to invite its efforts, that in fact Ave are not to expect to find 

 a legitimate end, or even a pause in our career of labor, while we can look back 

 with eminent satisfaction uj^on the less tlian a decade of the Society's existence 

 and felicitate ourselves with the consideration of the much we have already 

 accomplished. AVe may yet very properly remark, as did Newton, when nearing 

 the close of that life that had wrought out so much for science and humanity, 

 *'I seem to have been pleasing myself in gathering a few of the more beautiful 

 j)cbbles along the shore, Avhile the boundless ocean lay all undiscovered 

 before me." 



