68 WORCESTKR COUNTT HOKTICULTURAT> SOCIETY. fl881. 



our Apples and Pears. The world is ransacked for new varieties 

 of the Orange — unquestionably more palatable to us because we 

 cannot grow it at home. Why should not the products of our 

 orchards be equally desirable, in climates where, from extremes 

 or vicissitudes of heat and cold, they have been proved of ditficult 

 or impossible cultivation ? 



It is to be regretted that our Premium Schedule exacts such 

 frequent revision. Stare decisis would be as sound a motto for 

 such documents, as for the more rigid mandates of the law. But 

 therein lies the problem, always vexed and, as would seem at 

 times, of almost hopeless solution — What is decided f After long 

 conference, and comparison of views, we entered upon the 

 official year that has just closed so prosperously, with confidence 

 that, at last, something like absolute assurance was attained. 

 The very first Exhibitions demonstrated the fallacy of such hopes; 

 and rendered it even surer 'than skepticism had predicted, that, 

 80 long as men are of such dififerent minds, no single acceptation 

 of even the clearest phraseology can be expected. Of course, 

 there will be some who incline to cavil, even as the sparks fly 

 upward, and whose casuistry is inspired by all the ardor of 

 selfishness. Their name is not, however, Legion, and their number 

 is far exceeded by the roll-call of the honest majority, whose 

 doubts are entitled to the respect ever accorded to sincerity. 

 Our holy religion was to the Jews a stumbling block and to the 

 Greeks foolishness. How then shall a mortal committee, with- 

 out the gift of tongues, expound to the satisfaction of all the dis- 

 tinction of varieties that are often, to themselves, without essen- 

 tial difference — Onavtriav for Ofioiovo'iav — salvation contingent 

 upon a vowel ! — or make manifest that the call for Flowers, 

 Seedlings of 1881, is not fairly answered by the display, at the 

 end of July, of blooms from plants that were forced under 

 glass ! 



Take this very instance of a call for varieties : can it, by any 

 possibility be productive of accord or satisfaction ? Just reflect 

 upon the almost infinite number into which the sub divisions of 

 species degenerate and are lost, and behold ! the difliculty. As 

 of yore, in your classification of Fruit, when sweet was contrast- 

 ed with sour, the boast of Summer with the cull and pride of 



