292 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



any previous one, the pears being not only in great 

 variety, but many of them large and beautiful. The 

 apples were fine, especially the collection presented by 

 Benjamin V. French, which was an exhibition in. itself, 

 comprising one hundred and forty-one varieties, all well 

 grown, and many of them very handsome. The gold 

 medal of the Society was awarded to Mr. French for his 

 services in the cause of horticulture, and especially for 

 collecting, successfully cultivating, and exhibiting this 

 great variety of apples. 



The show of plants was small, owing to the limited 

 space ; but those exhibited were principally specimens 

 of great beauty. The exhibition of vegetables was also 

 small ; but the specimens shown were almost universally 

 excellent of their kinds. The show of potatoes, which 

 in former years had been very fine, was scanty, on 

 account of the disease. 



The new Committee on Gardens reported at yhe close 

 of the year, that by the offer of prizes for the best gar- 

 dens, greenhouses, etc., a new impetus had been given 

 to cultivation, and that the objects of the Society in 

 offering the prizes were being fully realized. They 

 bore testimony to the general improvement and neatness 

 of nearly every place visited, and to the cordial recep- 

 tion which they everywhere met. The Fruit Commit- 

 tee, while acknowledging the great advance in the 

 cultivation of the pear and the introduction of improved 

 varieties, regretted that the almost exclusive devotion to 

 this fruit had led to the neglect of the apple, a fruit 

 certainly as useful, and, in an economic point of view, 

 more valuable. 



The first object we find to note in the exhibitions of 

 1851 is the Weigela rosea, now so common in our gar- 



