28 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1874. 



REPORTS 



REPORT OX APPLES. 



Committee. — Wm. T. Harlow, Chainnan ; James P. Allen, O. B. 

 Hadwen, Samuel H. Colton, Samuel A. Knox. J. K. L. Pickfoid, Sylva- 

 nus Sears, of Worcester ; Cyrus White, Henry Marble, of Millbury ; and 

 Isaac B. Hartwell, of Oxford. 



No better exhibition of apples than those of this societj^ this year was 

 ever made in the County of "Worcester. Whatever may be said of the 

 attendance or non-attendance of the public, or of success or non-success 

 in a financial point of view, as regards fruit exhibited, the autumnal ex- 

 hibitions of 187-4 are unsurpassed in the annals of this Society. At least 

 two causes contributed to this result. The crop was unusuall}^ large and 

 the exhibitions were held after maturity of the varieties for which pre- 

 miums were offered. 



Vast quantities of apples were laid upon the society's tables for which, 

 notwithstanding their merit, we had no premiums to award in conse- 

 quence whereof we were unable to do full justice to all exhibitors. Con- 

 sidering and regretting the fact our attention was drawn to more careful 

 consideration of the repeated recommendations of Secretary Lincoln in 

 regard to " abolition of the existing system of classification of apples and 

 pears as meaningless and unprofitable and a substitution therefor of direct 

 competition between different lots of the same variety."* His illustra- 

 tion of the viciousness of thi system in the case of pears might be more 

 than matched in that of apples. The fact that the apple product of the 

 County vastly exceeds that of pears is probabl}'^ the reason for offering 

 premiums for larger collections of apples than of pears. But the larger 

 the collections and the greater the number of contributions the more dif- 

 ficult is just award. If the large collections to be compared contained 



* Transactions 1872, p. (U and 187:5, p. m. 



