1892.] TRANSACTIONS. 21 



dity. In this city, frantic appeals, not wholly unmixed with 

 denunciation of assumed official laches, were addressed to the 

 Parks-Commission. But it was plainly manifest that the plague 

 did not come within their purview ; for that the Shade-Trees of 

 Worcester are of a class that do not harbor such insects. The 

 wild-cherry, with swamp and road-side brush, are their chosen 

 habitat; and they are tolerated by private owners, who cannot 

 be permitted to shift the pack of their individual negligence 

 upon the broad back of the community. After the citizen has 

 done his duty towards the reduction in numbers of a pest that 

 he has hitherto harbored, will the occasion ofler for the applica- 

 tion, by public officers, of saw, torch, or worm of wire. But, 

 if the citizen loill not do his duty ! 



Eeviewing the history of the Royal Horticultural Society of 

 England, in the light of its reviving prosperity, the Gardenefs 

 Chronicle expresses some opinions that it may be worth our 

 while to ponder : 



"It is not the interests of prize-loving exhibitors, not the 

 welfiire of trades, not the whims and caprices of mere pleasure- 

 seekers that the Royal Horticultural Society has primarily to 

 do with. These things are all well enough, and unobjection- 

 able if kept within due bounds ; but neither of them singly, 

 nor a combination of all of them, can be urged as anything but 

 very secondary objects for the Royal Horticultural Society." 



"The renewed offer of money-prizes is a conciliation to the 

 weakness of frail human nature. Such prizes constitute one of 

 the main objects, and reasons for existence, of the special and 

 of all the local societies ; but are of far less consequence in the 

 case of a body whose duty it is to advance horticulture rather 

 than gratify individual ambition, or satisfy less honorable, how- 

 ever legitimate, proclivities."* 



The award of money-premiums is well enough in its way, 

 where it is intended and operates to arouse and stimulate an in- 

 terest, hitherto dormant, in the various branches of horticul- 

 ture, liut when it becomes the sole end, and the loftiest ambi- 

 tion of competitors, at our exhibitions, to obtain the higher 

 prizes because of their intrinsic value, the function of the 

 Society is perverted and its rewards are meretricious. It may 



* Gard. Chron., 13 Feb., '92, p. 208. 

 3 



