1892.] TRANSACTIONS. 29 



taste. But let it never be charged with justice, against the 

 Worcester County Horticultural Society, as such, that it pros- 

 tituted its lofty mission to any ignoble aims ; or so demeaned 

 itself as to underlie the reproach, — the more bitter because so 

 true, — that 



" The funeral baked meats 

 Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables." 



Why these altered, unnatural conditions? Why stringent 

 exactions in behalf of a dead, or phantom, memory that were 

 not imposed when the continued, vigorous life of our Republic 

 was to be commemorated I Not thus, — by no cold storage ! by 

 no attempt to evade or subvert natural laws : by no cunning- 

 appliances of the huckster ; did your exhibits at the Centennial 

 of the Republic achieve the distinction whereof the evidence is 

 so manifest from these walls. We are told that "the irreat 

 development of Horticulture in the United States, since 1876, 

 renders necessary most strenuous efforts to retain the leader- 

 ship which our beloved State has always held." The precise 

 character or magnitude of that "great development" is not 

 clearly apparent, unless we accept for it that latest hobl)y of 

 florists — the craze in Chrysanthemum. Many years have 

 elapsed since the Centennial Exhibition ; and it would be 

 strange indeed were it impossible to improve upon the tentative 

 policy of that almost forgotten period. There would inevitably 

 be great changes in the variety of fruits that we might select, 

 since pomological, like all other taste, is fickle; and the kind 

 that tickles the palate of one generation becomes insipid to its 

 successor. Of course certain Apples and Pears are, and bid 

 fair to continue, standards of excellence at all times and every- 

 where that they can be grown. But novelties are introduced, 

 — the product of cultural skill or natural evolution ; and surely, 

 if slowly, the inferior are neglected or summarily discarded. 



Personally, I have serious distrust if the fruit of the present 

 season will keep well. Its tendency is, rather, to ripen early, 

 if not prematurely ; when, in spite of every artifice for its pres- 

 ervation, it must soon decay. The Massachusetts Society is 

 ' 4 



