REVIEW OF PROGRESS, 1838. 245 



The exhibition of vegetables was better than ever be- 

 fore, and a separate report was made for the first time. 

 The number of contributors of fruits, flowers, and vege- 

 tables, was much larger than in any previous year. As 

 in the preceding year, the Committee of Arrangements 

 dined together on the last day of the exhibition. The 

 occasion was one of friendly greeting and cheerful 

 intercourse, and the sentiments called forth indicated 

 much zeal in the cause of horticulture and floriculture. 

 No address was delivered before the Society, as there 

 had been at every previous anniversary. 



The Transactions of the Society for 1837-38 contain 

 an interesting review of the progress of horticulture up 

 to this time, by John Lewis Russell, the professor of 

 botany, from which we learn that the greenhouses in 

 the vicinity were particularly rich in the Camellia 

 Japonica. The taste for this* flower was universal, a'nd 

 the collections were numerous, comprising every choice 

 variety of native or foreign origin. That of Marshall 

 P. Wilder stood first, there having been added to it 

 within a year twenty-one of the newest varieties from 

 China, England, Germany, Belgium, and Italy. The 

 collections of Samuel Sweetser and Hovey & Co. were 

 of great merit. Next to the camellia the azalea was 

 the greatest favorite ; and exceedingly valuable collec- 

 tions were common. That of Mr. Wilder contained a 

 hundred or more specimens of azaleas and rhododen- 

 drons, some of great rareness ; and that of Mr. Sweetser 

 was equally large. Rhododendron hybridum, belonging 

 to Mr. Wilder, exhibited nearly one hundred flower 

 buds ; and R. arbor eum, in the conservatory of John P. 

 Cushing, nearly seventy trusses of bloom. The Cacteee 

 had many representatives, a fine group belonging to 



