36 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1881. 



We must therefore dismiss the idea of feeding plants as we do 

 animals, entirely from our minds. All we can do, is to supply 

 the best possible conditions of heat and moisture, as well as pure 

 air and clean foliage, and the plants themselves must do the rest. 



Although 1 fear I have already wearied you, I wisii to say a 

 few words on another topic, and that is. Hare and New Plants. 



Every winter, in every consideral)le city, somebody goes about 

 with some wonderful new thing. They got it from Mr. Yick, or 

 they were sent out by some other great florist, to sell for them 

 some unheard of new bulb, or lily, or something else. And 

 always they find purchasers, in plenty, whether it is for a 

 " Double Oxalis " or for the wonderful " Tassa Masacca," 



Now here are your florists whom you all know, always on the 

 lookout for something new, for their customers. And here are 

 all the great propagating and wholesale houses in the country 

 sending out every Spring and Fall, their catalogues of new and 

 rare things for us to buy. Now I receive towards a half-bushel 

 of such catalogues ; some from Germany, some from Holland, 

 some from England and Scotland, besides what I receive from 

 our own country. And Mr. Lange, or Mr. Thayer, or Mr. Keyes, 

 or any other florist could probably say the same. Now I want to 

 ask in all candor : Is it wise to expect that some tramp is going 

 to sell you some really desirable new thing, that none of us ever 

 heard of ? Perhaps none of you ever bought the " Double 

 Oxalis f " but tiiere were a good many who did ; and when their 

 plants blossomed the flowers were not double. 



The " Tassa Masacca" was got up in this way : 



It was a dull season of the year, and two or three young clerks 

 got their heads together to see what they could do. They took 

 some Pearl Barley and colored it a tine pink color with an 

 aniline dye. Then they got a lot of seed bags at the seed 

 stores and some flaming pictures of some not very common thing 

 from an old Horticultural magazine, or some seed catalogue, and 

 as a Latin sounding name would be more like the names the 

 seedsmen send out, they had the name " Tassa Masacca " printed 

 on their seed bags. Of course, the plant being so rare, they 

 could only afford a few seeds to a packet for such a low price. 

 One of the young men engaged in it told me all about it. Says 

 he, " mind you, we did not sell any of tliem. We got two or 

 three newsboys of our acquaintance to do the selling for us and 

 we gave them a good percentage on what they sold," " Did they 

 sell many ? " I asked. " Sell ! " saj's he, " they went like hot 

 cakes. Each boy had one of tliose pictures to show what the 

 seeds were going to produce, and some of them made two or 

 three dollars a day selling our pink Pearl Barley at twenty-tive 



