244 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



nation." The exhibition of roses two weeks later was 

 very extensive and interesting. The bouquets of that 

 day appear to have been very different in style from 

 those now shown. On the llth of August there was 

 exhibited " a large, beautiful bouquet, composed in part 

 of asters, dahlias, and Gladiolus Natalensis, " a com- 

 bination which we think would surprise the ladies and 

 gentlemen who make up the bouquets that now take 

 the Society's premiums. Not unfrequently specimens 

 of new flowers were exhibited in bouquets, fifty vari- 

 eties of roses, for instance, being thus shown. Septem- 

 ber 8 Otis Pettee exhibited ninety kinds of seedling 

 peaches, all fair and handsome, and many of them 

 fine, taken from as many trees. The promise of the 

 opening exhibition was kept, the shows being better 

 attended, and exciting more interest, than in previous 

 seasons. Among new plants the Verbena Tweediana 

 was extensively cultivated and greatly admired. 



The annual exhibition was held on the 19th, 20th, 

 and 21st of September. The flowers were very pro- 

 fuse, with the exception of the dahlias, which were so 

 much injured by the extreme heat of the season, and 

 the continued drought of July and August, that scarcely 

 one-tenth as many were shown as the previous year. 

 The fruit, however, made amends ; for such a rich and 

 numerous variety of fine kinds had never before been 

 shown. Robert Manning's collection of pears com- 

 prised eighty-four varieties, and Benjamin V. French's 

 collection of apples, sixty-eight varieties. A magnifi- 

 cent Stanhopea quadricornis from Marshall P. Wilder, 

 Pandanus utilis and Araucaria excelsa from John 

 Lowell, and Agave Americana variegata from the 

 Messrs. Winship, were among the most showy plants. 



