20 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895. 



bear keeping on ice ; that is better for being so kept smothered 

 in cream, whereas the Strawberry would be spoiled by similar 

 usage ; and that, whether fresh or preserved, retains its own ex- 

 quisite, peculiar flavor unimpaired by any method of treatment. 

 A few stools will supply a family owning a small homestead, 

 amply if not profusely. Better buy your Strawberries and 

 escape that " tired feeling" which no one can avoid save the boy 

 whose knees are limber enough to stoop for one if, haply, he 

 may eat two ! 



The practical failure of the Currant, ordinarily so hardy that 

 its yield can be reckoned upon with certainty, is noteworthy if 

 only for record. It may be that the Frost which followed so 

 nearly upon those intense heats of May whereby all forms of 

 vegetation were forced forward so rapidly, should be held re- 

 sponsible for more than the early lethargy or decimation of 

 the Currant-Worm. The bud and blossom of that especial fruit 

 are usually indifferent to excessive or untimely frost and storm. 

 But when all are precipitated in quick alternation, with now and 

 then a deluge of rain to wash pollen in impaired vitality, even 

 the old-fashioned sturdy Currant-Bush of Massachusetts may 

 well be excused if it fails to yield all the service that we have 

 been wont to exact from it. 



The Cherry has always found a congenial home in Worcester ; 

 but that good fortune, so far as concerns the fruit itself, has not 

 insured an unfiiiling yield of Heart or Eagle. In the present 

 calendar year, for instance, there were no specimens of Elton, 

 Black Tartarian, Black Eagle, or Downer's Late Red exhib- 

 ited on July 11th, the date appointed by your Committee on 

 Exhibitions. Following days of excessive, unseasonable heat 

 were drenching showers and humidity that wilted what it did 

 not blight. Thrifty trees, under the direct observation of your 

 Secretary, in a night as it were, developed a harvest of rotten- 

 ness. Yet remarkable specimens were shown by Miss Gary of 

 Austin Street, without much doubt a chance seedling from Black 

 Eagle, and possessing every merit of its putative parent with 

 higher development of flavor and firmness of flesh. During the 

 latter part of July there could be seen upon the stands of our 



