134 THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY 



among them white pines, six or eight feet high, pitch-pines T 

 fourteen feet high, a white oak, fifteen feet high, and a gray 

 birch, seventeen feet high. 



The cost up to 1887, including purchase and importation, 

 labor, fencing, surveying and compound interest at five per 

 cent., had been, 1390.90. The committee remarked that 

 the experiment showed distinctly that the European larch 

 can be grown cheaply on very poor soil, but did not show 

 that native trees will not do as well, instancing the white 

 pine. 



In 1886 a society having been incorporated as the Bay 

 State Agricultural Society, the trustees of the Massachu- 

 setts Society voted to give it financial support in holding a 

 stock exhibition in Boston. The vote was of a two-fold 

 character, providing a guaranty fund of $10,000 and a gift 

 outright of 12,500, to be applied in premiums in the name 

 of the Massachusetts Society. The effect of the guaranty 

 was to give the new institution immediate financial credit. 

 The public response, in the purchase of tickets of admission 

 to the exhibition, was generous, and the enterprise yielded a 

 profit, so that the guaranty fund was not drawn upon, 

 There was no competition for one or two of the society's 

 premiums, and the expenditure under that head was but 

 $2,200. Certain members of the board of trustees were 

 also members of the executive board of the Bay State 

 Society. 



The exhibition was held in the spacious building of the 

 Charitable Mechanics' Association, on Huntington Avenue, 

 beginning on Wednesday, October 6, and closing on Satur- 

 day evening following. The situation was an ideal one, in 

 some respects, as adequate ventilation and a proper temper- 

 ature could be constantly maintained ; and so the choice and 

 valuable animals escaped such discomforts as those, which 

 may be called their predecessors, were liable to, on the 

 bleak hillsides of Brighton. In the evening the interior of 

 the building was lighted by electric lamps. The number of 

 spectators was constantly large. On one day the attend- 

 ance was estimated to be 23,000, an accurate enumeration 



