12 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1890. 



hopeless crop in Massachusetts ! Can anytliing be grown by a 

 people that wastes hours of daylight swinging in a tropical ham- 

 mock ? 



Who toils eight hours at best, 

 Sleeps other eight with zest, 

 Letting Satan have the rest, 



may be sure that disease and insects will combine to get in their 

 perfect work, and can compute as certainly in June as in October 

 what shall be the harvest ! 



And except there are novelties, — if there is to be no advance, 

 — cui bono ? Who comes, or wishes, to see, save possibly at the 

 " Hoss-Trot for the Acceleration of Agriculture," the same stale 

 stallion, or effete gelding, year after year, notwithstanding the 

 " Hi-ya's ! " may be more vociferous ! Having brought to your 

 notice my share of the newer varieties in all the diversified 

 branches of Horticulture, 1 claim the right to call attention to 

 the radical deficiency of the Society, as a whole, in this particu- 

 lar. For, even if novelties of prospective or manifest value are 

 produced at home, or imported, what can we know of their in- 

 trinsic merits under the prevalent theory and practice whereby 

 the money premium has become the Horticultural Alpha and 

 Omega ! 



What in good sooth do we accomplish? We meet weekly : 

 and thereafter some of our Members are richer, pecuniarily, by a 

 few dollars or cents. Doubtless, as a method of dispensing our 

 income, the money is well disposed. In some cases it is of ma- 

 terial assistance, enabling its recipient to procure the newer seeds 

 or plants that would have been unattainable otherwise. The re- 

 turns from Garden or Farm, — Hortus, Agerque, — are not so 

 bounteous as to entice the modern syndicate, that harpy omniv- 

 erous of every ample harvest. For the Trust of these latter 

 days, pet infant of legislation. Potatoes or Corn have no charm. 

 In the endless pages of the cotemporary statute, as we are assured 

 upon the highest authority, there occurs nowhere a line that will 

 provide a market for another bushel of wheat — another barrel of 

 pork ! Does fruit fare better ? To him that hath shall be given ! 

 And is it not re-enacted at Washington, — the law that was graven 



