12 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1887. 



only be recollected as of bright promise for beauty, and flavor, 

 alike. But there can be no doubt that there have sprang up, 

 unnoticed and unknown, on many a hillside, and by countless 

 stone walls, seedlings from that best of all fruits, the Apple, 

 which, if secured and thoroughly tested, would approve them- 

 selves fitting successors to the Baldwin and HubbardSton None- 

 such. Were such not the fact, we should be justified in assuming 

 the decay of Nature and that her immemorial processes of repro- 

 duction were in abeyance or had ceased utterly. Yet, if we do 

 not see it, we are sure that semination is constant, and will be 

 continuous so long as gravitation is a law. We ought not to rest 

 idly content with the varieties that we have, excellent as many 

 of them are. There is need, as foreign markets open ; and there 

 will be opportunity as quickly as our people learn that commerce 

 means mutuality of benefits, and is not fostered under duress ; 

 for a variety with the firmness of the Baldwin, that will keep 

 sound like the Hubbardston, but shall possess a flavor in which 

 both are confessedly deficient. An apple, in short, of attractive 

 appearance and of decided pleasant character, as it were. Would 

 it not pay to originate such a fruit, think you, at least as well as 

 potatoes or hay in August, 1887, when the windows of heaven 

 are left open ? And would it not yield as fair returns as those 

 hopeless mortgages in far Utopia, whereof the re-imbursement is 

 barred by local statutes, if not even resisted by force of arms ! 

 The man whose greed stretches out into remote regions for cent 

 per cent in the end bemoans the loss of his principal. The good 

 citizen, on the other hand, who devotes his increasing resources 

 — the accumulation from a keen foresight and wise frugality, — 

 to the improvement of his actual estate, — accounts to himself 

 with certainty, in the ultimate disposition of his afiairs, for a 

 peaceful life, a clear conscience, and, best of all, freedom from 

 debt! 



But, — it is objected, — the development of new varieties exacts 

 time and patience in a measure and to a degree that we cannot 

 afi'ord. What can you afi"ord ? To take your ease, bodily, aban- 

 doning your pastures to the invasion of White Birch ? To " invite 

 your soul to loaf," at convention and picnic, dispensing with the 

 primeval curse by a majority vote, and usurping to yourselves 



