466 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and facts, are projects which have not been realized. 

 On the other hand, it is true that our exhibitions have 

 become more extensive, and their influence has been 

 more pervading and powerful than the most sanguine 

 could have expected." l 



It will be evident that the Society, in its purpose to 

 introduce into this country fruits, flowers, and vegetables 

 of the highest character in other lands, to test their 

 merits, their value, and the best method of cultivating 

 them in this climate, and then to issue them with its 

 approval for cultivation, has succeeded beyond its high- 

 est expectations, and has thereby disseminated a vast 

 amount of healthy and profitable enjoyment, and added 

 much to the resources of the tiller of tne soil. But, as 

 it proceeded, a much higher aim developed itself: this 

 was to encourage the attempt to raise native fruits, flow- 

 ers, and vegetables, of as great if not greater excellence 

 than any which could be introduced from other coun- 

 tries, and better adapted to our climate. The work of 

 originating such varieties makes but slow and gradual 

 progress, and requires not only a good stock of patience 

 and hope, but the application of fixed rules, the result 

 of study and observation, as well as constant stimula- 

 tion and encouragement. To afford this stimulus the 

 prospective prizes of the Society were established ; and 

 though the various awards of these prizes, made from 

 time to time, have been recorded in these pages, it 

 may be well to bring together here the Hovey cherry, 

 the Jenny Lind and President Wilder strawberries, the 

 Dana's Hovey and Clapp's Favorite pears, the Moore's 

 Early grape, the C. M. Hovey camellia, the Lilium 

 Parkmanni, the Daisy Rand rhododendron, and the 



1 President Strong's Address, 1873. 



