REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON VEGETABLES, 1920 25 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON VEGETABLES. 



By William N. Craig, Chairman. 



The Committee on Vegetables desires to report that the displays 

 of vegetables made at the various exhibitions of the Society held 

 in 1920 were on the whole very satisfactory. Competition was in 

 some cases less spirited than we would like to have seen; this was 

 not surprising when it is remembered that inducements in the way 

 of money premiums were comparatively small and that a large 

 proportion of the amount offered came from Miss Marian Roby 

 Case of Weston, without whose generous pecuniary aid several 

 exhibitions could not have been held. 



The quality of vegetables shown was uniformly good and it 

 was particularly encouraging to note the good competition in the 

 classes allotted to collections and their effective staging. The 

 season proved to be a favorable one for all varieties of vegetables, 

 the growing season was a long one, and even quite tender kinds 

 remained unscathed by frost until November. 



The Wm. B. H. Dowse Challenge Trophy, offered to the exhibitor 

 scoring the greatest number of points in the vegetable classes, was 

 captured b;\' Hillcrest Gardens, a popular and well-merited award. 

 The statement is occasionally heard and sometimes believed that 

 a vegetable show is unattractive and does not interest the general 

 public as do flowers and plants, but anyone who attended the 

 exhibitions during the past year must have been impressed wdth 

 the fact that vegetables, even if shown only in moderate quantities, 

 attracted visitors fully as much as any other exhibits staged and 

 at the November show the vegetable display made in the small 

 hall proved more of a potent attraction than any of the other 

 exhibits. 



It is somewhat discouraging to the committee to note the gradual 

 elimination of vegetables from the schedules. The Massachusetts 

 Horticultural Society was formed to encourage the culture of 

 plants, flowers, fruits, and vegetables and until comparatively 

 recent years lived up to this high ideal. Now unfortunately it is 



