CO WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1874. 



your Secretary, who, when solicited to grind in the same prison-house, as 

 chairman of a notorious committee, felt that there was " too much pork 

 for a shilling." He scrupled religiously against " casting away pearls." 

 He was too polite to deliver a sermon from the text, " De te fabula nar- 

 raiu?-." May we not ask of our associates of the Society, and upon the 

 )joard of Trustees, that they shall hereafter walk more circumspectly? 

 thereby saving their bacon! 



That infectious disease, the blight, manifold in its methods as inexplica- 

 ble in its insidious operations, has been unwontedly destructive during 

 the past official year. In England, such were its ravages that it has 

 received a specific appellation, and is feared but respected as the "Amer- 

 ican Blight." There it appears to prove as fatal to the Apple as, until 

 lately, among ourselves it has shown itself to the Pear. But even at 

 home, unless the scrutiny of keen and interested observers is at fault, its 

 deadly sphere is widening. Many a goodly tree in our Worcester orchards 

 has succumbed to it — not alone depriving its owner of the present crop, 

 but also destroying his hopes for the future. Your Secretary has expe- 

 rienced a personal disappointment from this cause, where he had trusted 

 to be of service to this Society and the community. In two instances 

 stocks upon which he had ingrafted new species of Pears, whose thrifty 

 growth for three years gave promise that their quality might be speedily 

 tested, suddenly shriveled in leaf and branch, lingered awhile and died. 

 The Souvenir du Congres failed in this way upon the Belle Lucrative, 

 and the Duchesse de Bordeaux upon the Glout Morceau. Of this lattei 

 variety, by the way, of unrivalled excellence when soundly matured, we 

 lAay prepare to take final leave. Superb of flavor, as unique in foliage 

 and wood, what wonder that it should have provoked the especial com- 

 ment of our late associate, George Jaques — eliciting from that shrewd 

 observer continual references to its singular likeness to the Quince. 

 Whichever may have preceded in the race of " natural selection," it is 

 growing rapidly and sadly evident that in the mortal disease which 

 threatens their speedy extermination no specimen of ei-her will remain 

 to illustrate a " survival of the fittest." Kemedies without number have 

 been suggested, tried, and found ineffective. Our learned associate, 

 Thomas Meehan, is of opinion that weakness of the tree, due to insuffi- 

 cient nourishment or the lack of suitable food, is the one adequate cause 

 to which the origin of the blight may be attributed. Pie thinks that the 

 potash in the soil has become exhausted, no longer being restored in the 

 form of wood ashes, whose beneficent influence upon plant-growth is 

 utterly lost in the residuum from anthracite. This is in his favor, at 

 least, and so far supports his theory (which lie cL'iims to have practically 



