1881.] TRANSACTIONS. 79 



two or three Winters, is elsewhere given in this report. The 

 great majority were instructive ; having been prepared with care 

 and study ; and evincing the sound judgment and matured expe- 

 rience which established the fortunes of their authors ; consti- 

 tuting them, at the same time, expert witnesses upon the subjects 

 that they were invited to explain before this Society. A few 

 were treated with less precision of statement than we were war- 

 ranted in expecting. And it is exact information that we crave : 

 of speculation, and inference from baseless premises, there is 

 more than enough. For no silo is yet invented, to provide for 

 mental decomposition and ferment : were such even wholesome 

 intellectual food. 



A suspicion has once or twice perplexed your Secretary^ that 

 gentlemen might anticipate that they were to address an audi- 

 ence from the rural districts ; and that elaborate preparation 

 would be thrown away upon fat-witted clod-heads. The frigid 

 response to immature thought, or crude preparation, must con- 

 vince such, if. such exist, that study is a good investment ; and 

 one which, sustained by ripe judgment, will never lack apprecia- 

 tion in " provincial " (if that is correct cockney \) Worcester. 



Shall those meetings be continued through another season % 

 They are certainly worth perpetuating, if they can be kept up to 

 the standard hitherto maintained. But the Society has a repu- 

 tation — to lose ! and cannot afford to assemble, week after week, 

 merely to advertise those who aim to push themselves into noto- 

 riety. Topics of vital importance to the " practice and Science 

 of Horticulture " have been well considered during the last 

 three (3) Winters. It may chance that the supply of themes is 

 not yet exhausted ; that essayist and lecturer may still fall a 

 helpless prey to the untiring energy and cunning wiles of our 

 artless Chairman of Arrangements. One or two subjects, acci- 

 dentally omitted or left incomplete, last Winter, might supply a 

 firm foundation whereon to rear a noble fabric of instruction, 

 should it be your ultimate decision to persist. But we must 

 resolve to be content with nothing that does not tend to aug- 

 ment the sum of precise knowledge; not al)solutely rejecting 

 hypothesis, but regarding or admitting it solely as a possible 

 method of detecting the true from the false. 



