1888.] TRANSACTIONS. 15 



theory would accord ; the austere virtue of assessors relaxing 

 and exact and equal justice, for once, being done. 



Our Exhibitions were held, throughout the year, in substan- 

 tial accordance with the Schedule. Occasionally an important 

 display was deferred, to meet the imperative necessities of the 

 case — notably thus in the matter of the annual Kose Show. No 

 season is remembered by the veterans on your Committee of 

 Arrangements, wherein an assignment by averages (if it may be 

 so described ? ) was of such little worth. A flower or fruit was 

 invited upon a specified day ; since, for three years out of four 

 one, if not both, had been in perfection at that time. It was of 

 no sort of use, A. D. 1888; everything that grew to assurance of 

 petal, or pulp being seized with a fit of procrastination, and put- 

 ting in its appearance some two weeks after its appointed date. 

 Long experience, however, had convinced your Committee of the 

 futility of recasting the schedule to meet temporary exigencies ; 

 the attempt to do which usually results in making a bad matter 

 worse. 



The two opening Exhibitions, in March and April successively, 

 were of signal excellence and greeted, as they deserved, by ad- 

 miring throngs. The prospect for a display of Flowers, or aught 

 else animate or inanimate, looked forlorn enough as that fearful 

 blizzard was piling up its fathomless drifts. Nevertheless Holden 

 and Leicester came on time, and Whitinsville (is not the ' ville ' 

 surplusage ? ) once more manifested, under diSiculties, that in- 

 terest to which this Society was ever deeply indebted. No such 

 physical obstacles confronted us in April ; and the Exhibition, 

 for that month, was without drawback of any kind. But there- 

 after your Secretary feels that results justified his former con- 

 tention. That there is not enough from which to achieve a 

 creditable display, each week, commencing in the middle of May, 

 as we did A. D. 1888. True, — artfully disposed, something may 

 be effected with the refuse of parlor or conservatory ; nor is it 

 denied that parsneps can be exhumed that are well worth eating. 

 But the truth is we are or ought to be planting at that particular 

 juncture ; and a Horticultural Society should be the last to 

 require its members to gather where they have not strewn. There 



