34 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1878- 



but the merest dullard, to be invested with the apostleship of taste and 

 beauty ; to teach how the earth may be made to renew its youth ; — 

 how the waste places shall be trained to assume and develop new forms 

 of loveliness. 



The practice of holding meetings, at which essays should be read, to 

 be followed and improved by discussion of their several themes ; a prac- 

 tice happily inaugurated in A. D. 1877 ; was continued during the 

 earlier months of the current year. The subjects selected for considera- 

 tion were as follows : — 



Manures. 

 Tillage. 



Garden Vegetables. 



Hardy Ornamental Trees, Shrubs and Plants. 

 Orchard Fruits, their Cultivation, Storing, and Keeping. 

 Insect and other Enemies of Fruits and Flowers. 

 Diseases of Fruit-bea'ing Trees and Vines. 

 Small Fruits — Modes of Cultivation. 

 The best dozen Annual and Perennial Flowering Plants. 

 IIow can we Utilize the Waste or Unimproved Land of New 

 England ? 



Members of our own Society, of coquate tastes and pursuits, gladly 

 yielded the ripe results of their observation and reflection. For that 

 object teaching has apt, if enforced, scholars, among our active associ- 

 ates, has been apparent for a long time to your Secretary. The Fru- 

 givorous and Granivorous bird, and insect, at last exact that attention 

 so long demanded for them in these Reports ; and even Olean Street 

 and Sunnyside concede that, as concerns the Turdus migratorius, there 

 is slight odds between grist and toll. Florists and Pomologists, from 

 distant parts of the Commonwealth, paid ready heed to our request, and 

 not only instructed us, orally, but delighted our eyes with a modern 

 and Yankee Feast of Roses. The audiences, it is a pleasure to state, 

 were appreciative and large : in some instances, so large as to test the 

 capacity of the Hall of Flora. This was notably the case whenever 

 matters of Floriculture were to be treated. For the ability to master, 

 and expound, that branch of Horticultural learning, was amply vindi- 

 cated by one to whom our Society has been indebted for continuous en- 

 couragement ; while the rapt attention of the throng in attendance 

 plainly manifested the powerful attraction of the subject for her sex. 



Nevertheless it is obvious, if these meetings are to be kept up in 

 future, and to be fraught with that positive instruction without which 



