884 Horticultural Society Proceedings. [August, 



tion as witnessed by them on some other occasion than the one from 

 which they were expected to make their report. And I will here 

 take occasion to inquire of these gentlemen that, if it were possible to 

 reverse the evidence presented to their consideration, and Hovey's 

 Seedling, instead of the immen'^e crop of mammoth and well-devel- 

 oped fruit which greeted thei/ ^yes in the broad fields of our Ken- 

 tucky friends, and the enoriy ,,is dishes of the luscious berries which 

 were found upon the tablet, of their hospitable ladies, and with such 

 delight and apparent gr .tification transferred to the stomachs of the 

 "Investigating Commi%ee," had been such ill-formed, imperfectly de- 

 veloped, half-grown j t.d miserable looking creatures that the Superior 

 presented to our eyes at every place seen, without one single excep- 

 tion, and the Superior had been all that we found the Hovey to 

 1)0, what would have been the character of the report ? I leave, sir, 

 Ihe answer for such as choose to make it. 



Finally, when we recollect that Hovey's Seedling secured the 1st prem- 

 iums at the two spring exhibitions of 1855, and the spring exhibition 

 of '56, carried off the grand sweepstake of $10 offered by the society for 

 the best four quarts of any variety, and decided, too, by this same com- 

 mittee, to be of larger average size, more handsome^ uniform herry, and 

 of BETTER FLAVOR, than the Superior placed in competition with it, we 

 can not but congratulate the society upon the advanced ground they 

 have taken, and flatter ourself that the experience of one or two more 

 years in Strawberry cultivation will bring the society, and especially 

 the "majority," up to the opinions entertained and fully expressed in 

 the " minority" report of the Fruit Committee presented to this society 

 on the 22d March last. I would commend to your careful reading 

 once a quarter at least of that minority report. Lest I become 

 tedious, I will pass over other items in the report of the majority that 

 I designed to notice. Very respectfully, W. E. Mears. 



On motion, the Committee on the Hall was continued one week. 



Adjourned. J. P. FOOTE, Pres't.pro. ^em. 



G. Graham, Sec'y. 



M l « ■ ■ 



Opposition to Inventors and Discoverers. — Roger Bacon was 

 forbidden to lecture, and when sixty-four years of age was imprisoned 

 in his cell for ten years, for the offence of making concave and convex 

 glasses, the camera obscura, and burning glasses. Galileo was also 

 imprisoned for his discoveries in astronomy. Guttemburg and Faust, 

 tlie inventors of printing, were looked upon as having sold themselves 

 to Saltan. 



