62 WORCESTER COUNTY IIOKTICULTL'RAL SOCIETY. [1881. 



As I look around this Hall, and upon this audience, I can but 

 sadly realize the changes which the seasons have brought, with 

 their inexorable recurrence, during a generation that has passed 

 away. Of Thirty-Five (35) contributors, l)y whom Ninety-Two 

 (92) plates of Feaches were shown, A. D. 1853, but Two (2) 

 were represented in any, the least degree, at your Weekly Exhi- 

 bitions throughout the year jnst closed. A. D. 1856, three years 

 later, — One Hundred and Fifteen (115) plates of Peaches were 

 placed upon your tables by Thirty-Three (33) contributors. Our 

 esteemed associate, from West Boylston ; and our Junior Yice- 

 President ; out of that number, are all to whom we have been 

 indebted for evidence of unflagging interest in the Snmmer of 

 A. D., 1881. The men, — our valued friends, — have left us: 

 but, — by their fruits, we still know them. For the varieties 

 which they cultivated are yet grown, from choice : and Cooledge ; 

 the Crawfords ; with George lYih ; gratify the palate, as they 

 commend themselves to a more modern and fastidious judgment. 

 Crawford'' s Early ^ and Late^ Melacoton ; as they were styled in 

 our earlier Transactions, upon their first introduction ; were rich 

 repayment for whatsoever trouble their origination cost. Only 

 in the same way, — by sowing the pits of choice and healthy vari- 

 eties, — can we hope to produce kinds that shall be named for us 

 and endure after us. A majority may be worthless : but, if we 

 can originate a Peach like the Cooledge^ will it not be ample 

 remuneration, of itself To sow and to hybridize ! the lesson 

 which Nature is constantly teaching us : as it is the early, the 

 uniform, and the latest injunction of Marshall P. Wilder, in 

 his advocacy of new and suitable fruits for the American Conti- 

 nent. To that laudable end, shall not each of us contribute some 

 portion of sustained effort and energy ? 



A. D. 1880, Apples could scarcely be given away. During 

 the present season they have been in scant supply for the baby 

 of the family. Those Gravensteins and Porters that come so 

 handy in the forenoon, as a half-lunch ; that are indispensable, 

 after dinner, to those who have once tasted them ; and which are 

 never base metal, notwithstanding the proverb, at any hour of 

 the day ; are conspicuous by reason solely of their absence. 

 Without Rhode Island Greenings, or even Baldwins, the pros- 



