FLOWERS AND FRUITS IN 1846. 277 



new varieties. The 20th of June being premium day 

 for roses, paeonies, pinks, and other flowers, the contri- 

 butions, especially of roses, were so profuse that it was 

 found necessary to limit many of the exhibiters to a 

 smaller space than they desired. Messrs. Hovey & Co. 

 exhibited nearly two thousand blooms of hardy roses, 

 in upwards of five hundred varieties. Perhaps the two 

 most popular varieties were La Heine (Hybrid Per- 

 petual) and Souvenir de Malmaison (Bourbon). Client- 

 dole (Hybrid China) was spoken of as " surpassingly 

 fine." These and Solfaterre, which was then just intro- 

 duced, are still cultivated. Later in the season seed- 

 lings of the new Japan lilies were exhibited by Presi- 

 dent Wilder, who, immediately on the introduction 

 of these beautiful flowers, had commenced hybridizing 

 them. That favorite among our earliest pears, the 

 Doyenne d'Ete, was brought to notice this year. On 

 the 10th of October Samuel G. Perkins sent some 

 remarkably fine specimens of about twenty varieties 

 of autumn and winter pears. Mr. Perkins was a most 

 skilful amateur cultivator, training his pear trees on 

 walls, in the European method, and had previously 

 exhibited many fine specimens. Since his death, which 

 occurred the following summer, the training of fruit 

 trees on walls has been but little practised here. The 

 exhibitions of fruit this and the two succeeding years 

 were stimulated by special prizes for the best varieties 

 and specimens, which the Society was enabled to offer, 

 in addition to the regular premiums, through the lib- 

 erality of a gentleman 1 desirous of promoting horti- 

 cultural science. It being the object of the donor to 

 ascertain and make known through the Society the best 



John P. Cashing. Ante, page 124. 



