PROCEEDINGS. 185 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FRUITS, AWARDING PRE- 

 MIUMS FOR 1851. 



The Committee on Fruits now submit herewith their award of Prizes for the year 

 1851. 



Before announcing their awards, your Committee cannot refrain from congratulating 

 tiie Society that, from the attendance of the public, the number of exhibitors, and the 

 quality of specimens placed upon its tables, it is evident that there is no diminution of 

 interest, either in tlie exhibitions of the Society, so far as this department is concerned, or 

 in the objects for which the Society was instituted. Indeed, your Committee are of opinion 

 that instead of diminishing, the interest taken in horticultural pursuits is constantly in- 

 creasing, and that while its processes have become subjects for scientific investigation in 

 order to ascertain the best mode of conducting them, the principles indicated by such 

 investigations are constantly being submitted to the test of experiment by the best and 

 most judicious cultivators. That the reducing of the principles established by science 

 to practice, is having a beneficial effect upon the products of the horticultural art, is in a 

 measure established, by the fact of specimens of these products, from year to year, of a 

 superior quality to any preceding exhibition of the same product. When, for instance, 

 fruit of the same species, and even of the same variety, is placed upon your tables supe- 

 rior in size, beauty and quality, to any specimens of the same species or variety before 

 exhibited, and this happening not once only, but constantly year after year, — the last 

 always excelling its predecessors, — it is to be presumed that this continued increase in 

 excellence is rather to be imputed to a constantl}- improving mode of cultivation, than to 

 the accidental circumstance of a peculiarly favorable season, soil or position. 



This is not the proper occasion, neither is it the design of your Committee, to enter upon 

 the discussion of the subject of " specific or special manures," but it is a fact, that can 

 hardly he disputed, that some particular mode of cultivation, the application of some 

 particular agent of fertility, either in respect of kind, composition or quality, — a soil 

 consisting of some particular component parts must be best adapted to the different species 

 if not varieties of fruits, — exercising a beneficial influence under some circumstances 

 upon the growth and vigor of the tree or plant, and under others exercising an influence 

 upon the fruit, and the continually improving quality of the different species of fruits 

 induces a hope that experiments are in progress that will lead to a solution of these and 

 other interesting problems. In this connection, the expression of a wish that the mode of 

 cuUivation, manures applied, soils used, &c., by the most judicious and most successful 

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

 for the public, relating as this does to a subject of much iixiportance and about which all 

 are in some measure interested, may not be considered improper. The cultivation of fruit 

 is yearly growing in importance not merely as an article for domestic use and consumption, 

 but for the supply of the market, and perhaps even for foreign export. Subject by the 

 facilities for intercommunication afforded by railroads and canals to the competition of 

 more congenial climates and fertile soils, the common products of horticulture as well as 

 agriculture are yielding at best but a scanty remuneration 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 returns. Consid- 

 ering 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 cuUivation 

 seems to offer a better chance for profit than the raising of fruits, it being to be remem- 

 bered, that having now frequent opportunities of tasting those of superior excellence, the 

 taste of the public is becoming more and more fastidious, and thence that it is becoming 



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