64 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1875. 



should become the property of the Society, to be exhibited at the proper 

 time in Philadelphia. The County need not be ashamed of its parentage 

 of the Holden Pippin, the Hubbardston, Nonesuch ; or, as suggested by 

 our President, the Sterling. And, in this presence, may I not add also, 

 among Pears, Earle's Bergamot ? Should you conclude to comply with 

 the request of the Commission, it might be well to act in connection 

 with the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. A display by ourselves 

 alone would be meagre, even if space could now be secured: but it would, 

 doubtless, in aid of that venerable Society, help achieve something for 

 the fame and name of our ancient Commonwealth. 



The Fifteenth Session of the American Pomological Society was 

 held in the early Autumn, at Chicago, Illinois. Delegates were appointed 

 by your Trustees, and some had the good fortune to be present, in the 

 ripe fruits of whose observation you will probably participate. But not 

 all returned that went out of our gates. Departing with an almost exu- 

 berant cheerfulness, anticipating personal enjoyment and instruction in 

 measure unalloyed, probably any one of our number would have appeared 

 a more likely victim for the insatiate archer than Samuel H. Colton. 

 The records of our Society will ever bear true witness to his assiduous ser- 

 vice. The columns of the Massachusetts Spy or National JEgis, for more 

 than a quarter of a century, attest to his interest in Pomology. His Reports, 

 as Chairman of the Committee upon Apples, were carefully elaborated, 

 and, besides being written in the Queen's English, were fraught with the 

 results of a keen and life-long observation. He died, it may be said, in our 

 service. What priceless seedling, not yet produced by our members, of 

 Flower or Fruit, shall be his appropriate and perennial monument ! 



An unexpected reUef from the plague of the Canker Worm was expe- 

 rienced during the last season. Of course there were orchards that ap- 

 peared to be maintained for the sole pui-pose of perpetuating these insects. 

 But such evils will doubtless be chronic so long as a heedless and sceptical 

 veneration refuses the wisdom of your Secretary, rejecting his advice to 

 abate the nuisance by the application of State Constables. The Tent 

 Caterpillar, however, more than supplied any deficiency in numbers of 

 the Canker Worm. Of vastly easier suppression, because within instant 

 or even cursory observation, how ought we to reproach ourselves with our 

 lazy tolerance ! A, keeps his trees clean and wholly free from the pest • 

 his neighbor B, who gets nominated for Alderman or even Hog-Reeve, 

 has faith in the multiplication-table and thinks that the only baptismal 

 name is now as it was and shall ever be — Legion. At the last session of 

 the General Court a petition from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society 



