1874.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. 69 



some one to supply. The orchardist depends too exclusively upon chance, 

 if, like the Southern planter, he places his sole reliance upon a single 

 crop. The cravings of the palate are as varied as the seasons; and as the 

 measure of Procrustes would not fit every-one, so neither can individual 

 appetite, or the lack of it, be established as an immutable law. 



The usual misrepresentation has followed us throughout the past sea- 

 son, impeding our efforts and lessening our usefulness. Disappointment 

 at the failure to win expected premiums has led to withdrawal from 

 competition at future exhibitions, accompanied by scarcely veiled impu- 

 tations of gross partiality on the part of the judges. One person, aftei 

 boasting of his success in growing a particular fruit, replied to the inquiry 

 of your Secretary, why he failed to show specimens at our Exhibition, 

 that a friend of his remarked to him in 1873, in Horticultural Hall, " Why 

 do you bring your Peaches here? You cannot get a premium." Now, 

 if that man was a member of the Society, his insinuation simply betrayed 

 the fact that our privileges are sometimes unavoidably conferred upon 

 those wholly unworthy of them. If he was not a member, he abused our 

 hospitality, which suffered him to intrude upon enjoyments that he proved 

 himself incapable of appreciating by his facile evolution of a gratuitous 

 slander. In either case he told a sheer falsehood, which is none the less 

 rank that its exposure has been so frequent and thorough. The Com- 

 mittee on Peaches, etc., is constituted of members of whom W. "W. Cook, 

 Joseph C. Lovell, of West Boylston, and Paul Whitin may be taken as 

 representatives. The awards have mostly been given away from Wor- 

 cester. If anybody fancies that the gentlemen named, or their colleagues, 

 would be unduly swayed by fear or favor, he will enjoy a monopoly of his 

 jaundice. Yet disappointed greed is ever calumniating such men, impu- 

 ting to them faults that itself would be too happy to commit did occasion 

 serve. 



The Autumnal Exhibitions of our Society, changed though their date, 

 were subjected to their usual rivalry. The parade of the comic Gyas- 

 cutus, in a neighboring town, might be expected to offer irresistible 

 attraction to congenial minds: but the persistence of the Agricultural 

 Society, in its futile efforts to organize a horticultural display, after its 

 formal and unrepealed vote to abandon such waste of its scantj"^ means, 

 is inexplicable upon any theory of a prevalent comity. It is to be regret- 

 ted that some of our active members, notably Trustees, feel at liberty to 

 serve two masters; disregarding the moral precepts instilled into their 

 youthful minds, which warn them how they " make unto themselves 

 friends of the mammon of unrighteousness." Better, although he may 

 appear to utter it in his own praise, that they imitated the example of 



