28 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, [1887. 



On Sunday, August 2l8t ult"., he dismissed all care for worldly 

 petal or bloom. 



The announcement of the death of Joseph C. Lovell came 

 upon the executive officers of this Society as with a shock of per- 

 sonal bereavement. On the 8th of September, ult°., he was in 

 our Hall of Pomona, consenting to be a delegate to the coming 

 session of the American Pomological Society ; in whose object 

 and work ]\g ever took deep concern ; and giving cordial sanction 

 to the proposed omission of our own Exhibition, appointed for 

 the 15th, although, as he told your Secretary^ he might thereby 

 lose an opportunity to show certain grapes of his individual grow- 

 ing and preference. On the 19th, he was dead. His visits to 

 this Hall, where the obstacles were not insuperable,* occurred at 

 a time of day when, of necessity, few were present. He came 

 in usually, at noon ; arranged his fruit, — sometimes the exquisite 

 floral specimens of his daughter ; if her absence, as is too often 

 the case, was enforced ; and then departed for West Boylston to 

 uphold the faithful prosecution of labor at his homestead. Join- 

 ing our Society, A. D. 1865, at a period when it became the boast, 

 or deceitful profession of every other man in the Commonwealth 

 that he Knew Nothing ! Joseph C. Lovell came among us with 

 his honest if rugged countenance ; with a heart that held no 

 guile ; bringing with him ever a breath of fresh air ; his contri- 

 butions to our shows always new and excellent; his experience 

 sooner told than withheld. He indeed, could not be impatient 

 with any one who commended himself as an earnest seeker after 

 truth. For such, when approved by his calm judgment, too much 

 trouble could not be taken in the way of object-teaching and 

 tireless instruction. Of late years his attention was closely turned, 

 I had almost said confined, when I timely recalled what he was 

 ever doing to test new Pears, towards Viticulture. To him, — 

 more than to any and all other men, — do we owe the dissemina- 

 tion of the Rogers Hybrids ; their wide propagation ; the firm 

 assurance of their good qualities ; and the conviction that they. 



* September 8tli, the last time that the writer saw Mr. Lovell,— in life;— he ex- 

 cused his absence, on the previous Thursday, by mention of the destruction of 

 bridges, and washing out of roads in the rage of the furious rain-storm, the week 

 before. E. W. L. 



