1889.] TRANSACTIONS. 7 



be reached that this or that Apple or Pear is wortliy of encour- 

 agement ; is fair to the eye, luscious to the taste, nor exception- 

 ally difficult to cultivate ! When those points have been decided 

 once, — why should there be motions in arrest of judgment, or 

 appeals therefrom ? But yet, — what else, or in what manner 

 different, — is our official action as a Society ? In the matter of 

 size and weight — say of the Bartlett Pear, since the famous con- 

 test between Butman, Ripley, and Stebbins, — what has repaid our 

 efforts! lias there been a single step in advance? Is there not 

 even discouraging proof of retrogression ? Whether advance or 

 recession — what do we, in recognition of cither, but plod along 

 in the same old way, — ofJcring a premium for the best of the 

 year to come ! Do we stop to inquire why each successive step 

 is not surely forward ? Do we spend more than a moment in 

 thouglit, to try and explain, as the American Humorist tersely 

 put his apt conundrum, " Why are these things thus ! " The 

 Exhibition passes, — and there is an end. The morning newspa- 

 per makes record of the display and publishes sharp note of its 

 least latent inferiority. What has the collective Society, — what 

 have the associate Members themselves, — learned from the costly 

 and laborious olijcct-teaching ! What lessons has that teaching 

 imparted to the community that could not have been deduced at 

 less trouble to all concerned, and for not much greater expense, 

 from an inspection of the kerb-stone display by any of a half- 

 dozen hucksters along Main Street? Beyond the memory of 

 any man now living the Bartlett Pear had been decided worthy of 

 general cultivation. As far back as the origin of the present 

 generation your own Exhibit'ons settled, by a thorough competi- 

 tive test, to what extreme its bulk could be stimulated. You have 

 developed nothing better, subsequently, — no specimens of equal 

 size. Does this vain repetition advance the science, or encourage 

 and improve the practice of Horticulture ? This Society might 

 reply, like all others similarly inclined and actually misguided, 

 that it puts money in their purse ! But so, for a while, would 

 any other form of prostitution ! 



Is it not well worth our while ; and has not the time come, now 

 that the dawn of our Fiftieth Armiversary begins to tinge the 



