1889.] TRANSACTIONS. 29 



who found the Lord's House upon a Kitchen ! What tribute is 

 rendered unto Csesar by the devout patrons of those unctuous 

 larders! 



Our Halls of Flora, Ceres, and Pomona are reserved for the 

 especial uses of our exhibitions. But the first story of the build- 

 ing, — the shops or store-houses whereon the Society must depend 

 for its very existence ; which were constructed that they might 

 yield a revenue to be expended for the purposes expressed in our 

 charter, is now assessed for an amount nearly equal to the sum 

 that was levied before relief was asked from the General Court! 

 The Worcester Agricultural Society bought a tract of land away 

 out in the suburbs. The city has grown and, in its expansion, 

 tlie forlorn cattle-ground has become surrounded by dwellings 

 and very largely enhanced in value. An offer for it in cash that 

 would have reah'zed a profit of more than a thousand per cent, 

 was once quietly pocketed ; a suppression that operated as an 

 effectual rejection. The land itself is leased at hap-hazard, for 

 the noble sport of mercenary base-ball ; the thrilling sprint of 

 tlie human buck ; or an exciting struggle by the equine gelding 

 for a supremacy to be perpetuated by iiis get! All this it would 

 seem is taken as matter of course. Men who have striven, with 

 some measure of success, to extend and improve Worcester, find 

 their work of development arrested by this obstacle — the most 

 complete example of hopeless inertia extant. It returns no reve- 

 nue to City, County, or State; it possesses, without utilizing, the 

 unearned increment from waste acres that would be better occu- 

 pied by liomesteads ; it blocks the path-way and diffusion of set- 

 tlement ; it assumes to discharge duties that are more efliciently 

 performed by ourselves, leaving undone the things that it ought 

 to do ; and thus literally and actually cumbering the ground I 

 This Worcester County Horticultural Society of ours proposes a 

 display of Flowers, Fruits and Vegetables on the 5th daj' of Sep- 

 tember ; and can carry out its design if it will pay to the City and 

 County of Worcester, and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, five 

 hundred or more dollars in taxes upon a portion of its estate that 

 is and must ever remain indivisible. The Worcester Agricultural 

 Society, whose earlier and wiser members advised and promoted 

 the formation of this Horticultural Society ; to encourage a paore 



