8 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICUI.TURAL SOCIETY. [1889. 



horizon ; to indulge in introspection, and to assure ourselves, by 

 such thoroucrh self-examination, whether we are securing the ut- 

 most possible benefit from our industry and investment ! It is no 

 easy inatter to prefer the strait and narrow way. Our immediate 

 self denial will enure to the benefit of posterity, — you may assert. 

 Conceded! but still you can only avoid; — not answer the blunt 

 retort, — what has posterity done for us? And what certainty 

 can be had, — whether from deduction or inference, that posterity 

 will be suited with the provision that we make for it ! May it 

 not suffice to attempt the complete discharge of our duties as 

 they are presented to us, in our own day and generation ; leaving 

 those by whom we are succeeded, to take their own measure of 

 obligation to themselves and their time, in their own peculiar 

 environment ! The question then recurs : Cannot we better 

 advance the Science and encourage and improve the Practice of 

 Horticulture, than by the mere award of money to the larger or 

 fairer specimen of Fruit, or Flower ? Perhaps it might not be 

 expedient or wise to discourage object-lessons altogether. But, 

 cannot a higher form of teaching be introduced ; a more ad* 

 vanced system of instruction such as a careful expenditure of our 

 frugal savings shall enable us to initiate and foster? Experi- 

 ment Stations — so called — appear to be restricted within the com- 

 paratively narrow province of agriculture ; which, in its accepted 

 modern definition is limited to " that species of cultivation which is 

 intended to raise grain and other field crops for man and beast, — 

 in short, signifying husbandry." Those Stations are not intended 

 to take much account of the problems which have perplexed the 

 human race since Eden was foreclosed and the first garden be- 

 came a cattle ranch. Their Docents do not ransack mouldy 

 papyri for some primeval mention of Fire Blight; nor exhaust 

 patience and time in searching cuneiform inscriptions if perchance 

 they may disclose to modern inquisitiveness whether there were 

 a worm in the core of that Gravenstein before whose seductive 

 as|)ect Eve succumbed — an easy victim ! Nor yet does Clark 

 University come to our aid; its energies being confined, at least 

 for the present, to a profound analysis of the precise inwardness 

 of the Cosmic Egg. So that what we — Horticulturists — would 

 ascertain, we must find out for ourselves — and others ! 



