486 



DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



year 1846. The committee was continued by the 

 Society, who, in January, 184S, made another 

 report, whicli is published in the Society's Tran- 

 sactions for 1847. A short time after that, the 

 executive committee of the Society resolved to 

 call a Pomological Convention, to meet at Buf- 

 falo in September, 1848, to be composed of all 

 such, either in the state of New- York, or from 

 other states, as should think proper to attend — as 

 much a national convention as anj' that has been 

 held since, and having no other connection witli 

 the State Agricultural Society or its officers than 

 such as common courtesy demanded. That con- 

 vention met, and was composed of a numerous 

 body of professional pomologists, and amateurs 

 from at least half the states in the Union, although 

 some prominent gentlemen abstained from giving 

 it the light of their countenance, for reasons wliich 

 have been pretty thoroughly developed thmugli 

 the proceedings of the " National Congress of 

 Fruit-Growers," and the columns of the Horti- 

 culturist since. 



Notwithstanding the super cedeas served upon 

 the N. A. Pomological Convention by the coin- 

 mittes of the " Congress," and their reiterated 

 assertion of its dissolution, I cannot discover why, 

 ■ in the executive committee which that body ap- 

 pointed, its existence is not as apparent as when 

 in actual session, and also, M'hy that commiltee 

 are not in the full and proper exercise of all its 

 functions, until they declare their own dissolution, 

 or their principals do it for them. So much for 

 legitimacy and vitality. 



As to whether the gentlemen appointed to act 

 on the committee of the N. A. Convention, choose 

 to do so or not, that is a matter of taste and in- 

 clination, purely within themselves ; or whether 

 that body may ever choose again to reassemble, 

 will depend upon their own volition. Before ad- 

 journment, however, it did appoint smother nicct- 

 ino- to be held at such place as the next Show of 

 the N. Y. State Ag. Society should be held; and 

 I doubt exceedingly whether any resolution or 

 mandate issuing either from another body of the 

 kind, be it " Congress " or individual, can suni- 

 mai'ily sponge out its appointments. The simple 

 truth is — and it cannot be controverted — tliat the 

 body which styled itself the " North American 

 Pomological Convention," called by the N. Y. 

 State Agricultural Society, was the first body of 

 the kind having " an odor of nationality" about 

 it, which assembled in our countiy. 



Now, how stands the matter with the " Con- 

 gress," which its advocates contend to be the 

 only existing; organized pomological national body 

 of the kind. Why, thus: and I intend no imputa- 

 tion upon the motives actuating the gentlemen 

 who got up that affair — the American Institute of 

 the city of New- York — a very valuable associa- 

 tion, who seem to be possessed with a sort of 

 ubiquity in all matters of patronage, appeared to 

 take the initiatory of the " Congressional " move- 

 ment some time after the action of the State So- 



ciety in calling the " Convention," and apparent- 

 ly for the purpose of overslaughing its action in 

 that branch of its labors, which one would think 

 were quite as legitimate as those of mechanics 

 and arts, to the improvement of which the efforts 

 of the Institute were originally intended. That I 

 am warranted in this remark, I need only say, 

 that the leading gentlemen of the " Congress," 

 although specially invited by the proper commit- 

 tees, did not attend the BulTalo Convention, but 

 ever since its meeting have lost no opportunity in 

 disparaging its action and continuance, and of 

 exalting their " Congress" at its expense. With 

 the comparative utility of the proceedings of the 

 two bodies I shall not interfere. The public will 

 judge for itself. But that the "Congress" was 

 or is any the less an offspring of another institu- 

 tion than the Buffalo Convention, is sufficiently 

 significant from the title page of its published 

 " proceedings," a part of which reads thus: — 

 " Held in the city of New- York, October 10, 

 1848, under the auspices of the American InS'ti- 

 tute." The great effort of the " Congress" ap- 

 pears to be to place itself in the foreground as the 

 o?ily body of the kind now in existence, having a 

 national character ; with how much justice, the 

 premises detailed will show. 



A word in relation to an allusion in the March 

 article of the Horticulturist, personal to myself, 

 and I have done. I quote from page 424: — " We 

 will gladly assist, in our humble way, every effort 

 for horticultural progress in our State Society, so 

 long as its plans are kept within their proper li- 

 mits, whei'e we feel certain, under the new board of 

 officers, they will be confined." For one, I trust 

 the State Agricultural Society will feel duly grate- 

 ful to Mr. Downing for his patronizing grace to 

 its destitute situation, and that the unfortunate 

 peccadilloes of its late administration in treading 

 on the forbidden ground of pomology may meet 

 with the compassionate indulgence of an outraged 

 community ! But I am forced to lament my con- 

 victions that its " new board of officers" will be 

 quite as prone to discharge their duty to the great 

 agricultural interests of the state, even to the 

 promotion of their pomology, as their predecessors 

 have been in times past, albeit under this threat- 

 ened displeasure. 



In plain English. The whole article in the 

 Horticulturist to which I have alluded, displays 

 an overweening solicitude in the writer to appro- 

 priate the entire poinological rule and action of 

 the country to himself and a few others, and that 

 no body emanating from any source than such as 

 they may approve and control, let their services 

 and aims be as beneficial as they may, shall be 

 recoonized — so far as this subject is concerned. 

 Lewis F. Jllen, late President of the N. Y. State 

 Jig. Society. Black Rock, March 9, 1849. 



Remarks. — " In plain English," the Buffalo 

 Convention was an especial hobby of Mr. Allen's, 

 and we see he is a little out of temper with us be- 



