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THE HORTICULTURAL SHOWS. 



or four hundred sorts of pears, all labelled, 

 and carefully placed on the tables. Some are 

 very large and beautiful ; others, fine looking 

 but not so attractive ; and others so positively 

 indifferent and ugly in their coats and com- 

 plexions, that, except to serve as a foil to the 

 others, he is at a loss to know what brought 

 them Into such good company. 



To so much information as may be got by 

 the eye, our visitor, in common with all others, 

 is indeed fully welcome. But in the case of 

 fruits, at least, every good cultivator knows 

 that there are optical delusions, phantasmago- 

 rias, and painted cheats, which, when put to 

 the only true test — that of the sense of taste — 

 show plainly that there are other sodom-ap- 

 ples, besides those on the borders of a certain 

 sea in Asia. There is, to be sure, a " testing 

 committee" in all these societies ; but our 

 novice has not the passport to the private 

 room, where they hold their sittings ; and 

 their information, which is of a genuine and 

 substantial kind, is all free-masonry, so far as 

 he is concerned. All that he is allowed to 

 do, is to walk round the tables and admire 

 the fine forms and proportions of the fruits, 

 learn that this pear and that bunch of grapes 

 were raised by Mr. A., or Mr. B., and see that 

 they are really handsome looking specimens. 



It is true, that by seeking the personal 

 acquaintance of Messrs. A. or B., and asking 

 a variety of questions as regards quality and 

 culture, our novice may learn much ; and it 

 is well known, that in this kind of intercourse 

 which takes place at the exhibitions, a great 

 deal of useful information is actually given 

 and acquired — far more than is directly dis- 

 seminated in any way by the society. But, 

 on the other hand, not one person in ten, of 

 all the thousands who take advantage of the 

 three days annual exhibition, have, or can 

 readily obtain that personal acquaintance with 

 the exhibitors, which would enable them to 

 obtain such information. 



In every society there are, again, some 

 members who are in advance of the others in 

 making successful experiments, or in raising 

 specimens of extraordinary size and excel- 

 lence. They are in possession of information 

 which they would cheerfully impart, and 

 which, perhaps, they have imparted to many 

 of the members. But as they are not always 

 men who write for the press, and as their 

 neighboring cultivators already know all about 

 their practices, the society thinks it of little 

 or no importance that the numerous assembly 

 which throngs its exhibition rooms — among 

 which are many novices, anxious to learn, 

 (and who would learn fastest with the proofs 

 of successful culture before their eyes,) should 

 know anything about it, beyond the fact that 

 they have made " a glorious exhibition." 

 We visited, for instance, two years ago, the 

 triennial exhibition of the Massachusetts so- 

 ciety, and saw a great many surpassingly fine 

 specimens. Among other remarkable things 

 were pears of extraordinary size, beauty, and 

 excellence, from Plymouth, — a bleak and in- 

 hospitable climate for gardening, — yet whose 

 active cultivators had unquestionably suc- 

 ceeded in growing pears far more successfully 

 than others equally skilful in more sheltered 

 and apparently more advantageous sites in 

 the interior of the state. There were the 

 facts before our eyes, but the explanation we 

 could not get for a long while. Some one or two 

 individuals in the same climate, and with the 

 same soil as their neighbors, had also succeed- 

 ed in producing Seekel pears, of the size of 

 the Doyenne or Virgalieu, without any loss 

 of flavor ; and all that we could learn about 

 it was, that it was done by high manuring, — 

 but in what way, and what fertilizers were 

 used, no one was present to tell. 



Now, let us suppose that at one of these 

 exhibitions, the society — instead of being deaf 

 and dumb, while exhibiting its charms to the 

 admiring multitude of amateurs — should take 



