38 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1875. 



REPORT O^ PEAR?. 



Committee. — Henry L Parker, Chairman; Henry Phelps, John C. 

 Newton, James Draper, Alfred Davis, S. Harrison Knox, of Worcester ; 

 Newell Wood, of Millbury ; and William H. Johnson, of Northhorough. 



At the Annual Exhibition the present year, premiums for collections 

 were for the first time dispensed with, the award for the best single plates 

 being proportionately increased. The result has fully justified the experi- 

 ment. No better exhibition of single plates has ever been held by the 

 Society. 



Among the plates which deserve especial mention were the Beurre Diel 

 of the State Lunatic Hospital, and several plates of the Bartlett and 

 Flemish Beauty, although the two latter varieties are not included in the 

 list for which premiums were offered, the committee on premiums sup- 

 posing that these varieties would be far past their prime at so late a date 

 as the day fixed for the Annual Exhibition. 



For the Secretary's premium of S20 for the best fifteen varieties of 

 new pears, there was but one competitor. As a collection of fine speci- 

 mens of fine pears the display was unexceptionable ; but the fact that 

 several of the varieties were of from twenty to twenty-five years stand- 

 ing — the Catherine Lambre being dated by Leroi^ in 1850, and the Wil- 

 lermoz in 1848 — and that one variety, the Gen. Todleben, had been 

 cultivated and exhibited many years previously by a member of the Soci- 

 ety, rendered it so far ciuestionable whether the collection came within 

 the terms of the Secretary's offer, that the Committee did not feel jus- 

 tified in giving the exhibitor the benefit of the doubt. 



If this liberal offer is to remain good for the coming year, we would 

 suggest that the term " new pears" be so qualified, limited, or defined 

 that the same quandary in making the award shall not again arise. 



