1895.] TRANSACTIONS. 15 



Vegetables ; and, so far as we adhere to the standard set up by 

 ourselves, may claim to be measurably successful. But do we 

 exalt or degrade Pomology when in one breath recommending 

 Hornet Raspberry and thereafter strike it from our list? 

 When we depreciate Durandeau Pear below Paradis d' Automne, 

 traversino; the knowledoje and traditions of the ciders ! When 

 we relegate Dix — a standard variety of our own Massachusetts — 

 to the rear in inferiov rank with Frederic Clapp, wherof the 

 sole claim to notice was ever and only that its trumpet was 

 blown from Boston, whose geese are invariably swans ! Practi- 

 cally, you declare the Worden Grape to be worthy of higher 

 appreciation than Lindley, or Massasoit, and of twice the value 

 of that unequalled out-door variety — Zona ! Even Niagara and 

 Pocklington take precedence of lona in our schedule, although 

 there is little market for them, since appetite cannot be coerced ; 

 and Green Mountain is promoted from that forlorn awkward 

 squad whose pulp is insoluble as its juice is indigestible, of pos- 

 sible value in a State of Prohibition, mayhap, but which even in 

 such a benighted region must surely set the children's teeth on 

 edge. By what rule are we guided in framing our schedule, 

 presumably challenging excellence in its several classes ! Shall 

 we discard all that D. Waldo Lincoln and John Milton Earle 

 commended, — those choice kinds that Colton, Jaques and Ripley 

 imported because better than most that we then had! A genera- 

 tion since these worthies sat down in this library, and applied 

 themselves ,to a close analysis of specimens fully grown and 

 thoroughly ripened, putting upon record their judgment as it has 

 been transmitted to us, in the reports of the Society, through 

 the columns of the Spy. Shall we impeach the delicacy of their 

 taste or the soundness of their conclusion? Yet, every year, 

 not being much wiser than they, accepting some hastily formed 

 prejudice, in sheer abnegation of material test and decided 

 preference, we tear our schedule in tatters, adhering to nothing, 

 unsettling everything. Can we assign a valid excuse for this 

 continual scaling down, and paring off from our early standards 

 of excellence? Yet varieties are degraded, if not discarded 

 without so much as a why or wherefore, although they passed 



