56 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETT. [1881. 



Horticultural race ? The nnwasted vigor of youth is with us ; 

 and the flame of emulation burns, it may be, perhaps too 

 brightly. The City, it is true, keeps growing: but tlie country 

 is not yet so far repelled, that distance and time are factors to 

 be computed in estimating our chances. The venerable Massa- 

 chusetts Society labors under some disadvantages ; at present 

 weighty, and, in the nature of things, sure to prove more oner- 

 ous ; from which we are likely to be exempt. For unless 

 Worcester shall attain the magnitude of Boston, — the time is in 

 the dim future when the Halls of this Society shall not be 

 accessible from Gardens and Farms, if not immediately contigu- 

 ous, yet but a short and charming drive distant. Veterans of 

 the Massachusetts Society have confessed to your Secretary 

 that they could discern but slight prospects that their places, in 

 the order of Nature soon to be vacated, will ever be filled. The 

 eager attendance upon our Exhibitions of the last two years ; so 

 much animated by youthful ardor ; dispels from my mind, at 

 least, any similar apprehension for the continued welfare of this 

 Society. Should it, at last, after an honorable rivalry, be our 

 proud fortune to achieve the first place; as the second has often 

 been conceded by an authority from which there can be no 

 appeal;* our friends, who will simply not have retained the lead, 

 may find partial solace in the lines of the poet : — 



"To teach his grandchild draughts then, his leisure he'd employ; 

 Until, at last, the old man was beaten by the boy." 



And as much in the reflection that Elijah did not drop his 

 mantle — on a descending grade : nor, at all, until a worthy 

 successor was found. 



But just at this hour of writing, as in the Autumnal Equinox 

 the natural equilibrium is jostled ; and, amid hurricane, drought, 

 with fierce conflagration, man begins to mistrust the Promise that 

 "seed-time and harvest shall not cease" tlie tolling bell and dull 

 boom of artillery startle our ears, warning us that fruition again 

 disappoints — that the fairest hopes of a Nation are once more 

 blighted. The growth may be symmetrical ; — its development 

 from one year to another stately and tall ; — until, at last, when 



♦Marshall P. Wilder. 



