AMOUNT PAID IN PRIZES. 131 



them, with the exception of the first investment, which 

 was of comparatively small amount. Nor is it known 

 that a single dollar has ever been lost through the 

 unfaithfulness of any of its servants. 



The expenditures of the Society have been much 

 more varied in their nature than its income, and are 

 consequently more difficult to describe ; but the largest 

 annual item of expense has been the premiums and 

 gratuities paid for the exhibition of superior horticul- 

 tural productions, and, beginning in 1850, for the best 

 planned and cultivated gardens, greenhouses, and orna- 

 mental grounds. The sums annually offered in the 

 infancy of the Society were, of course, small, the first 

 premium list, published in May, 1829, amounting to 

 $153 ; but they gradually increased to $6,800, offered 

 in 1876. This increase has, with few exceptions, 

 been steady, though in 1845, the first year of the 

 occupation of the hall in School Street, the amount rose 

 to $1,200 against $460 in 1844. When the annual 

 exhibitions became so extensive as to be held under a 

 tent, the amount of prizes was necessarily increased, 

 after which it rose gradually until the civil war, when it 

 declined ; but, with the opening of the new hall, it rose 

 higher than ever before, and steadily increased until 

 1876. Since that year it has necessarily been dimin- 

 ished. The whole amount actually paid in prizes and 

 gratuities (not that offered) since the foundation of the 

 Society, including those for 1878, is about $103,000. 

 In addition to the prizes and gratuities for horticultural 

 productions, it has been the custom of the Society to 

 give a piece of plate to a retiring president, and some- 

 times to other officers the same, or a gratuity in money, 

 as a token of personal regard, and a slight reward for 



