184 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



beeu hardl}^ less extensive than that of pears, had the Western 

 parts of the State contributed as hberally as the Eastern, where the 

 apple is not so extensively cultivated. As an exposition of the 

 pomological products of our State, your Committee feel that the 

 part taken by our Society has resulted in bringing out a much 

 greater show than would probabl}- have been gathered together 

 without its aid. 



The exhibition, as a whole, though certainly not all that it might 

 have been, has probably never been equalled in extent in any 

 country. The whole number of dishes of fruit shown was fifteen 

 thousand. The largest similar exhibition previously made in this 

 country was that of the American Pomological Society at Chicago, 

 in 1875, when about six thousand dishes were shown. The most 

 prominent feature of the exhibition was the profuse display of 

 apples from Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and other Western States, 

 Kansas making also a grand exhibition of fruit in the State building. 

 The collection of fifty-six varieties of plums from Ellwanger & Barry, 

 of Rochester, N. Y., was such as is not often seen in these days. 

 The only place beyond the limits of the United States from which 

 fruit was sent was Canada. The Canadian crab and other apples were 

 remarkable for high color, and the show of plums was also exten- 

 sive and beautiful. The largest show of peaches was from Michigan. 

 Some idea of the exhibition may be formed by those who witnessed 

 the show made here in 1873 by the American Pomological Society, 

 and bearing in mind that the Pomological Building at the Centennial 

 was nearly two hundred feet square, covering four-fifths of an 

 acre — about eight times the area of our larger hall — and that the 

 greater part of the sixty tables which filled this immense space 

 were crowded with fruit. 



The whole amount expended out of the appropriation of $1,000 

 is $340.81. 



The names of the contributors from Massachusetts, with the 

 number of dishes of apples, pears, and grapes exhibited b}^ each, 

 are as follows : 



Marshall P. Wilder, Boston, . 



Hovey & Co., Cambridge, 



C. E. Richardson, Cambridge, . ' . 



Joseph II. Fenno, Revere, 



Benjamin («. Smith, Cambridge, 



Alexander Dickinson, Cambridgeport, 



