38 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1891. 



not content with mere acquisition. It exerted itself to transmit 

 to various places abroad those seeds and plants known to be 

 wanting to the comfort of its respective inhabitants. These 

 efforts of the Society were appreciated and met with a corres- 

 ponding return. The East India Co. sent valuable contributions 

 from their gardens and possessions. The Hudson Bay Co. ex- 

 erted itself to procure and send to the Society anything that 

 could prove useful or interesting ; and from individual corres- 

 pondents from all parts of Europe as well as more remote coun- 

 tries articles of great value and variety were being continually 

 received." 



But the Society did not rest content with the mere collection 

 of seeds, plants and trees, and their classification under their 

 botanical names. It began their culture and careful study in 

 their gardens at CHiswick. And in 1824, two years after the 

 grounds were prepared, the Society had at Chiswick the most 

 complete collection of fruit trees and of hardy trees or shrubs 

 ever made, up to that date, in England or any other country. 

 Then followed the construction of hot-houses, green-houses, 

 pineries, melon pits, forcing beds, tanks for aquatic plants, in 

 short, every conceivable structure and appliance necessary or 

 needful for the protection and culture of exotics and the experi- 

 mental work which followed on flower, fruit and vegetable. 



The results of the experimental work of the garden were em- 

 bodied in a series of papers read before the Society and published 

 in its transactions. During the years 1824, 1825 and 1826, Dr. 

 Lindley, the assistant secretary of the garden, made reports upon 

 173 new and rare plants which had flowered in the garden. Re- 

 ports were also made by other members upon experiments and 

 observations. 



Nor was the literary work of the Society confined to reports 

 upon the results of work at Chiswick. Papers were prepared 

 and read by men of the highest scientific attainments, pro- 

 fessors. Fellows of the Royal Society, Fellows of the Linnsean 

 Society, as well as Fellows of the Horticultural Society itself. 

 During a period of from six to eight years, from 1822 to 1828 

 or 1830, an average of about seventy per year of such papers 

 were read and published in the transactions of the Society. 



These were some of the topics discussed : — 



On the accidental intermixture of character in certain fruits. 



