62 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1874. 



to them. Were the facilities for ohtaining useful knowledge as freely 

 extended to scholars at the present day, it is quite possible that our boys 

 and girls might be less thoroughly versed in the recondite science of the 

 demi-semiquaver, but yet be able to distinguish a mushroom from a 

 toadstool. 



But not only in this sphere of labor did our late associate strive to 

 impress a perception of the beauties of the natural or cultivated landscape 

 upon the minds of the people with whom his lot was cast. The columns 

 of the Massachusetts Spy, of which he was so long the careful and untir- 

 inof Editor, bear constant testimony to his horticultural devotion. Of the 

 incalculable debt of this Society to him, and to William Lincoln, who at 

 the same time occupied the editorial chair of the National -^gis, no one 

 can form an adequate estimate who has not searched the older tiles of the 

 newspapers for records of our earlier transactions. But for them, and 

 for their willingness to publi.sh the reports of our committees, however 

 extended, we should be left utterly without trace of the history of our 

 Society during its original decade of struggles for a feeble existence. 

 For that great service, little appreciated in its day, our gratitude should 

 be acknowledged without stint, now that the worth of what he did so 

 unselfishly can be properly estimated. 



In his apt remarks to the Trustees, officially announcing the sad event, 

 the President placed especial emphasis upon the thoroughness of Mr. 

 Earle. Perhaps no one, more frequently than your Secretary, had occasion 

 to notice this characteristic of his mind. He could not be content so long 

 as doubt rested upon any point which it was possible for personal research 

 to resolve. Many an afternoon has he spent at the Library, hunting 

 throuo-h its shelves for curious volumes of horticultural lore, in which he 

 has left no one behind him so profoundly versed, and poring over their 

 ]>ages for hours, in patient effort to determine some question that had 

 been submitted to him in floriculture or pomology. He was human, it is 

 true, and his impatience was occasionally manifested when ignorance or 

 slothfulness sought to impose upon him the decision of matters which the 

 least study or observation would have enabled the querists to settle for 

 themselves. But even his better nature would regret the hasty word, 

 impelling him to atone to those so little deserving, by lavish drafts upon 

 his treasured stores of information. 



If in some of his later years he was partially withdrawn from us by the 

 cares of official life, with its too long deferred remuneration, the sever- 

 ance was but temporary — party ingratitude discharging the veteran whose 

 best energies were wasted in its service. Thenceforward his ancient zest 

 for all horticultural pursuits seemed to gain renewed vigor. Upon your 



