390 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Two notable events in the history of the Society 

 occurred this year, the Ehododendron Show on Bos- 

 ton Common, and the meeting of the American Porno- 

 logical Society. The Rhododendron Show was projected 

 and carried out, with the assistance of a committee of 

 the Society, by its constant friend, H. H. Hunnewell, 

 who, while guaranteeing the Society from any loss, 

 generously offered to give it the benefit of whatever 

 profit might remain after the payment of the necessary 

 expenses. 



The exhibition was carried out, as planned by Mr. 

 Hunnewell, in a manner never before attempted in this 

 country. It was opened on the 6th of June in a tent, 

 about three hundred feet long by eighty feet wide, 

 pitched not far from the centre of the Common. It 

 was arranged on the plan of similar exhibitions in Eng- 

 land; the plants, instead of being placed on stands in 

 pots or tubs, were sunk or planted in beds of turf, as 

 if growing naturally in the ground, the whole interior 

 of the tent presenting the appearance of a garden. 

 From the entrance at the eastern end a broad central 

 gravelled walk, bordered by wide strips of grass ex- 

 tending to the sides of the tent, brought the visitor 

 opposite a mass of rhododendrons more than forty feet 

 in diameter, forming the central feature of the exhibi- 

 tion. The front of this bed was composed of a group 

 of seedlings raised by Mr. Hunnewell. Here the path 

 divided, passing around near the margin of the tent, 

 but still with a border of grass between it and the can- 

 vas, the two branches uniting at the further end of the 

 tent, and enclosing three irregularly shaped beds, the 

 first containing the mass of rhododendrons already men- 

 tioned, and the second a similar mass : the third was 



