6 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Another important change embodied in the new By-Laws is that 

 which opens the prizes of the Society to general competition. The 

 result of this provision has been precisely what was expected by its 

 originators. No perceptible change has taken place in the distri- 

 bution of prizes. Now, as heretofore, they are won by our own 

 members ; and they will continue to be so ; for with us the admis- 

 sion to membership is so easy, and its burdens so light, that those 

 who have the inclination to compete for our prizes will soon seek 

 to enroll themselves among us. At the same time, the stigma of 

 illiberality, which a Society endowed like ours can ill atford to bear, 

 has been completely removed. 



During the ten years past we have made a growth as rapid as it 

 is healthy, and we still continue to make it. The discussions on 

 horticultural subjects, which are one of its most marked indications, 

 have never been better attended, or more interesting than during 

 the last winter and spring, and their value has been widely recog- 

 nized in this and in other countries. A conspicuous improvement 

 has taken place in our winter exhibitions, which a few years ago 

 could hardl}'' be said to exist. Display's were made last winter so 

 admirable that they might almost dispute the palm with those of 

 summer ; and they had the advantage of being accessible to a class 

 of persons who are apt to be absent from town during the usual 

 exhibition season. The summer displays, in spite of the heat and 

 drought, were fully equal to those of former years ; and at some 

 points they were superior. The show of specimen roses, in par- 

 ticular, was never before so fine ; and the show of fruit was, in 

 some departments, unusually good. 



In the autumn of 1875, an experiment was tried with results so 

 unsatisfactory that it was not thought expedient to repeat it. All 

 our members, with their families, were invited to join in a dinner, 

 the cost of which was borne mainly by the Society, the guests 

 contributing but a fraction. To make it wholly free to so many 

 persons would have involved an unsupportable expense ; so few, 

 however, applied for the tickets that a failure would have taken 

 place had not a considerable number been purchased and distributed 

 gratuitously by a few individual members. In view of this imperfect 

 success, the annual entertainment of last autumn was restricted to 

 the usual simple dinner to those who had given time and labor to 

 the official work of the year. 



Our general prosperity is not without one shadow. The report 



