52 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1874. 



especially rested. To the contractor, — Mr. Benjamin C. Jaques, — signal 

 credit should be awarded for the taste which designed so skillfully that 

 which his zeal and diligence wrought out as faithfully in execution. The 

 Chairman of the Committee, Mr. O. B. Hadwen, ever manifested a con- 

 stant and profound interest in the progress of the work. But it is the 

 simplest justice to Mr. John C. Kewton, to state thus publicly, in this 

 Eeport, what was obvious at the time to some few, that the Society owes 

 him a debt that can never be satisfied. For days and weeks together his 

 attention was untiring and assiduous. He devoted his whole time to a 

 personal supervision of the entire process of renovation, often suggesting 

 alterations of striking novelty and value. Where others attempted and 

 meant to do their duty, it is but fair to concede the palm to him whose 

 well-doing wearied not. 



The Society voted, at its Annual Meeting in 1873, to initiate a wide de- 

 parture from the usages of the past. Almost from the foundation of the 

 Society it has been the accepted custom to solicit the aid and contribu- 

 tions of all who felt kindly disposed, in the various departments of Flori- 

 culture and Pomology. It became inevitable, in the cordial response to 

 such appeal, that the tables, at each Exhibition, should be cumbered with 

 much that was little calculated to "advance the Science or promote the 

 Practice of Horticulture." The plethora of articles, in turn, occasioned 

 a deficiency of space, so that at last, in sheer helplessness, refuge was 

 necessarily sought in the ampler accommodations of Mechanics Hall. But 

 the greater room must not look dreary, nor unoccupied; and once more, 

 with the enlarged space for our Exhibitions, went forth the call for more 

 profuse contributions. A change had become imperative — the opportu- 

 nity for it was furnished by the completion of the alterations just effected 

 in Horticultural Hall. 



As a preliminary step towards a remedy for this state of things, the 

 Society determined, with some misgivings it is true, to try the experiment 

 of holding two Exhibitions instead of the one which has ordinarily ex- 

 hausted its energies. At the curlier of these it was anticipated that the 

 Fruits, Flowers, etc., of the closing Summer might be seen in their prime. 

 After an interval of a month, the products of the maturer Autumn, the 

 ripened growth of the year, could be exhibited, as they had never been 

 before, in consummate fruition. Many brilliant species of Flowers have 

 been marred, or wholly cut off from view, in former seasons, by prema- 

 ture frosts, or the withering influence of drought. Half developed speci- 

 mens of the Baldwin, or Koxbury Kussett, were rudely plucked, but to be 

 placed in violent juxtaposition to the Gravenstein or Duchess of .Olden- 

 liuiu-. The Bartlett and Flemish Beauty found themselves pitted, in un- 



