68 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1898. 



Can that be the final settlement of a question like this? I really 

 hope not. For myself, I would be willing to pledge a hundred 

 dollars to any farmer who is annoyed in any way from the tres- 

 passing of a boy of mine, and if all the parents in the city would 

 do the same, what might we have in just this respect? We might 

 have our roadsides and our pastures so full of chestnuts and 

 walnuts that we could gather them to burn. What is the state 

 of the case now ? I saw a man walking under a large chestnut 

 tree at the corner of Woodland and Charlotte streets, kicking 

 the leaves up as he went along, and just as he passed me, I 

 heard him growl, "Four boys to one chestnut, no use," and so 

 it goes. The world might be very much better if we took hold 

 of the sources of these evils which lie in the proper education of 

 the young. 



Following now the horticultural interests further, we find that 

 they divide into two branches ; each covered by an organization 

 in the city of Worcester. There is a great horticultural interest 

 which connects itself with our birds. They are the protectors, 

 the stewards, the saviours, of our orchards and gardens, therefore 

 it would be perfectly legitimate for a Horticultural Society like 

 this to encourage in every way possible the protection of birds, 

 and the education of children with reference to the value of the 

 different species to the community. It has been said by an emi- 

 nent French naturalist that if birds were destroyed entirely the 

 world would become uninhabitable within nine years' time 

 through the ravages of insects ; and this in spite of all the spray 

 pumps and insecticides we could get. We make little enough 

 of this horticultural interest in our education, still this lies in 

 the line of work to be done by the Natural History Society. 

 And so with another great horticultural interest, the methods 

 of dealing with the insects themselves. We have them, for 

 observation and for study by the child population of the city, all 

 the time with us, and it would cost nothing whatever for labora- 

 tories or apparatus in the schools to make the study of insects 

 such that every child in the city, by the time it had completed 

 the ninth grade work, would know possibly a hundred of the 

 insects which have most influence on our horticultural prosperity. 



