AMUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



To THE Members of the Worcester County Horticultural 

 Society : 



If ever the Members of a Society might justly indulge in mntiial 

 felicitations, snreW those belonging to the Worcester County 

 Horticultural may do so at the close of their latest official year. 

 With numbers augmented ; with action animated by a fervent, if 

 discreet enthusiasm ; with the burden upon our financial state 

 continually lightening; with our Hall in sound repair, in popular 

 demand, and of steadily increasing value; is it not our right to 

 claim due credit for a proper use of the talent committed to us ? 

 Have we not, by precept and example, " advanced the Science " 

 of Horticulture ? Have we not, by Lectures and Discussions, — 

 free to all, without favor or price; by Exhibitions equally open, 

 of choice specimens of Flower or Fruit, " encouraged and im- 

 proved its practice " ? We have no quarrel with other branches 

 of investigation : with the various, diverse methods wherein the 

 huraau mind wanders, often losing itself, in search of truth. 

 Every fact in Natural History is of aid to the inquiring Hor- 

 ticulturist. What Insects are predaceous and what beneficial ? 

 What Birds are f rugivorous ? and which, if any sufficiently insect- 

 ivorous to compensate for their conceded mischief ! These are 

 questions in whose apt solution we have a deeper interest, — that 

 of the pocket, — than those to whom they are but the problem of 

 a leisure hour. The cultivation of the Earth commenced in a 

 Garden. Thither, let us trust, as our knowledge of good and evil 

 pefects itself, it will revert. Then, — when the spade shall sup- 

 plant the plough ; when exact industry shall succeed wasteful toil, 

 and the careful harvest of an acre surpasses the slovenly yield 

 from large fields ; all shall be satisfied, each shall have enough 



