Massachusetts Horticiiltural Society. 36 



applied, soils used, &c., by the most judicious and most successful cultiva- 

 tors, may be obtained for the use of the members of the Society and through 

 them for the public, relating as this does to a subject of much impor- 

 tance and about which all are in some measure interested, may not be con- 

 sidered improper. The cultivation of fruit is yearly growing in importance 

 not merely as an article for domestic use and consumption, but for the sup- 

 ply of the market, and perhaps even for foreign export. Subject by the fa- 

 cilities for intercommunication afforded by railroads and canals to the com- 

 petition of more congenial climates and fertile soils, the common products 

 of horticulture as well as agriculture are yielding at best but a scanty re- 

 muneration to the cultivator for his labor and capital, with a prospect of a 

 diminution rather than an increase of this remuneration, and it is therefore, 

 if this is true, becoming daily more and more incumbent upon them to bestow 

 their attention upon those products that will most probably yield the best re- 

 turns. Considering then that the vicinity of Boston, and perhaps a considerable 

 portion of the State, is particularly well adapted to the growing of fruit, — 

 some species, as pears, for instance, raised here having it is believed an 

 acknowledged superiority, — no product of cultivation seems to offer a better 

 chance for profit than the raising of fruits, it being to be remembered, that 

 having now frequent opportunities of tasting those of superior excellence, 

 the taste of the public is becoming more and more fistidious, and thence 

 that it is becoming more and more important for the attainment of this ob- 

 ject to raise those of the best quality only. 



So numerous and so excellent have been the specimens exhibited in 

 competition for the prizes, that the Committee have, in some instances, been 

 embarrassed in making their awards ; where so many are nearly equal in size, 

 quality and beauty, it is not always easy to decide which are the best. The 

 Committee have strenuously endeavored in all cases to do exact justice to 

 the different competitors, and if they have failed in this respect it has been 

 through an error of judgment. Having made minute and careful examina- 

 tions, and a record of these examinations, from week to week, a judgment in 

 opposition to their awards, though fairly formed, from recollection merely, 

 without such record, might at least as properly as theirs be subject to the im- 

 putation of error- The fact of a particular variety of fruit being or not 

 being well adapted to general cultivation, as well as its quality, has influ- 

 enced the Committee in their conclusions. They have felt that they should 

 not be justified, through danger of misapprehension, in awarding a prize to 

 a fiuit generally of inferior quality, or one not suited to general cultivation 

 even when the particular specimens exhibited were of superior excellence. 



Stone fruits, as cherries, plums and peaches, have the past year been very 

 superior in quality and very abundant in quantity ; pears have varied very 

 much in quantity if not in quality, the crop in some places being scanty and 

 in others abundant, showing, most probably, the effect of the preceding 

 winter upon the trees in different places, while of apples, almost every 

 where the product has been small. 



Opportunity has been afforded the past year of tasting of several new va- 

 rieties of fruits, and as the numerous introductions of tfie last few years are 



