8 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1892. 



unquestionably more meritorious than others. There is such a 

 thing as pounding over the dry husks of a science, to the neg- 

 lect of the more nourishing meat in the kernel. Possibly all 

 the ills to which flesh is heir may be traced, bj^ a sufficiently free 

 use of scalpel and microscope to fungus, or blight ; bacillus, or 

 microbe ! Yet wherein has research clearly differentiated cause 

 and effect? Are our fruits and vegetables degenerating because 

 the prey of disease and insect ; or do we invite attack from ever- 

 threatening foes by our own laziness and neglect ! Do we run 

 for luck, that we may save the sweat of the brow? It is said 

 that there are known to Botany more than a hundred thousand 

 species of vegetables. How few of that almost incalculable 

 variety can be found in common cultivation ? How profound is 

 our ignorance of their intrinsic or relative excellence ! And 

 still it stands to reason that there was as much design in their 

 orio-inal evolution as in that of the very limited number hitherto 

 naturalized in our kitchen gardens. Here and there may be 

 found a novel Squash or Tomato ; mayhap a new strain of 

 Potato, developed from sheer necessity of so doing or of going 

 without entirely ; latterly the White Egg Turnip, which we 

 cannot, or will not trouble ourselves to keep pure ; and how 

 much has individual interest or energy added to the old-fash- 

 ioned healthful supply of our tables ! Should it not be the 

 business of somebody to take especial charge and compel devel- 

 opment from such chaos ? Private citizens have neither means 

 nor leisure to devote to exploration of the latent secrets of 

 Nature. They are too closely constrained by the hard necessity 

 of earning a living for themselves and their dependents. Yet 

 in a field so boundless, and where the laborers are so few, why 

 should not the institutions, founded by the wise liberality of the 

 Republic, develop their broadest possibilities ! By seed or 

 scion, by cross-breeding or hybridization, why should they not? 

 and who better than they can ! augment the sum of our actual 

 knowledge, and diversify the character of our sustenance ! 

 Nay, would it be wholly idle to invade the unsettled realms of 

 abstract speculation? The theory of Van Mons has been gen- 

 erally discredited ; but yet when we cannot otherwise account 



