44 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1877. 



The Commonwealth is to be agitated from centre to circumference, 

 and suffered no rest, because men will take thought of what they shall 

 drink. But none stop to consider the hopeless waste occasioned by our 

 Insect Foes ; solacing themselves with the idea that the loss must be 

 trivial because of the apparent insignificance of its cause. Grave legis- 

 lators devote weeks to an analysis of the scratches upon the backs of our 

 scamps at Westborough: but no concern is awakened by the pitiless in- 

 vasion of crawling and winged creatures, whose countless myriads mar 

 the face of nature, devastating it to a barren waste. " Am I not my 

 brother's keeper ? " We make light of the Colorado Beetle and point 

 to the immense crop of potatoes grown in his despite. But who take 

 account of the multitudes that have resolved to give up their cultivation, 

 allowing the last brood of beetles to hybernate without any effort to re- 

 duce their swarms ! The earth teems with them. Should Nature spare 

 them and man despise them — what then ? " Let them eat cake ! " said 

 the French Queen, when told that her subjects starved for lack of bread. 

 In default of Plums, the Curculio finds occupation with Cherry and 

 Peach. The Canker Worm is fairly domesticated. Can there be a doubt 

 that the excessive voracity of the Colorado Beetle will find something 

 wherewith to gratify itself ; the cultivation of the Potato being omitted 

 for a season, and all attempts to exterminate him having been neglected? 

 The old Romans had a proverb that " a word to the wise is sufiicient." 

 Yet how if they are wise but in their own conceit ? 



It has been exceedingly pleasant to note the re-appearance of the 

 Peach, at our Exhibitions, in goodly numbers and in all its pristine ex- 

 cellence. Those of us whose memory ran back for a generation could 

 recall the time when the Peach and Apple orchards of Worcester County 

 were trusted for a harvest, with an assurance that was never disappoint- 

 ed. The virgin soil nourished trees stout in girth, and of limb sufficient 

 to support the boys of the neighborhood, to whom it never occurred that 

 such temptations were meant to be resisted. The trunks were healthy, 

 the limbs vigorous — the foliage without blemish or curl. The Cooledge 

 and Crawford ; the Large Bed Bareripe and the Bed-Cheek Melacoton 

 were borne in a profusion as grateful as it was generous. That this race 

 of trees died of exhaustion, — consumption perhaps, by analogy, — cannot 

 be doubted. Propagated from the bud they could only transfer an impaired 

 vitality. As their stones were not sure to perpetuate their kind the va- 

 riety itself might be lost. So that when, in addition to these obvious, if 

 more or less evitable perils, was superadded the fearful frost of A. D. 

 1861, it is not much to be wondered at that the home-grown Peach should 

 have become a theme for tradition. That frost, of — 30 degrees Fahren- 



