1888.1 TRANSACTIONS. 17 



In opposition to this view of the matter, may be adduced the 

 very general display, by Professional Florists, at that grotesque 

 horticultural simulacruin^ offered annually, as a dissolving view, 

 at the best paying point in New England. But this fact does 

 not, of itself, adequately meet the contention. The Florist may 

 have gone there upon the speculation that lures the country 

 clergyman through the slums of New York. Ah ! exclaimed 

 Madame, la Marquise, clasping her hands pathetically, " if they 

 only knew how delicious is a little sin .^" But what must have 

 been the surprise to those precisians who were wont to insist, in 

 these Halls, that each flower must be judged by certain fixed 

 rules of excellence, to find themselves adrift upon a shoreless 

 sea where Vegetables floated in a special scow ; Floriculture pad- 

 dled a canoe of its own ; and Horticulture, as expounded by 

 wreckers to whom the saints never imparted their faith, shrivelled 

 until it was reduced to a mere equivalent and synonym for Pom- 

 ology ! And yet this Society, — associate with Mooke and 

 Wilder, as of Hipley and Earle, — was urged to volunteer — 

 jyarticej^s crimiiiis — in such an outrage upon the fixed land- 

 marks and established classification of an immemorial Science ! 



When this Society was organized, there were in Worcester, 

 none other than amateur florists. They were found amply able 

 to show all the flowers requisite for a first-class exhibition and a 

 fair allowance of that human nature which appears to be insep- 

 arable from such occasions. And they were shown by those 

 zealous women without hope of reward; since, for years, the net 

 returns from exhibitions went to form the nucleus of the fund 

 that, augmented by the bequest of Daniel Waldo, subsequently 

 enabled the erection of this Hall. Preferences were oflicially 

 expressed and the palm of decided preeminence assigned by ap- 

 propriate committees ; but no one was made suddenly richer by 

 gains from voluntary contributions to our tables. 



Curiously enough, while the above was written, and as if to 

 illustrate with what confidence Horticulture may rely upon the 

 amateur now, as of yore ; a number of Garden and Forest comes 

 to hand in which occurs the following suggestive statement : 



" The extent to which Horticulture is pursued for pleasure 

 merely, in Belgium, is shown by the membership list of the 



