18 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1896. 



a tabulated account of the Income derived from a sale of fruit 

 from a single tree, for a series of years, alike encouraging to the 

 grower and creditable to his personal industry and pomological 

 skill. Bear in mind that the receipts were from a tree of the 

 Beurre Diel, which to many of us has been forbidden fruit since 

 it cracked so hopelessly, yet which, in this particular instance, 

 appears never to have given cause for discouragement. 



Amounting in Nine (9) years to $132.26, and showing an 

 average of $14.69. I anticipate the incredulity that vvill attend 

 upon this statement, and can only meet it with an avowal of my 

 faith in its entire honesty, re-inforced by a doubt of any gain to 

 be derived from a deliberate lie in the premises. The more 

 common tendency is to underrate, rather than to magnify, the 

 receipts from one's especial calhng. A mention of Beurre Diel 

 can never be made without recalling to mind an old friend, 

 Edwin Draper, who served this Society so long and devotedly 

 as Chairman of its Committee of Arrangements while life lasted ; 

 and who always made an especial pet of that variety of Pear. 

 If not of the very highest quality, it makes no false pretenses 

 and, when at its very best, acknowledges few superiors. 



Somewhat of an innovation in practice, but an approved fact 

 of Horticultural science, has for years commended itself to your 

 Secretary as a step in advance that should be taken by this 

 Society. Almost from its earliest inception, certainly since it 

 elected to live under By-Laws, its Trustees have been authorized 

 to make suitable distribution of Seeds, Scions, &c., tliat might 

 be presented to the Society. But therein is the same old 

 trouble, — the worm at the bud that saps vitality from its very 

 origin, if inertia may be credited with action or motion. It is 

 the business of nobody in especial and therefore nobody concerns 

 himself to attempt it. In the first place, the custom of present- 

 ing scion or seed has fallen into disuse. Now and then a mem- 



