14 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895. 



annual constriction. All the dollars that can be gathered in, as 

 the result of exhibitions chiefly remarkable for hugeness, can 

 never compensate for the absence of that specific instruction that 

 is rendered wholly impossible by the crowd and crush. It was 

 a horticulturist, was it not, who wished to know what it should 

 profit a man in the end to gain the whole world, yet lose his 

 own soul ! It was a pillar of the Church, was it not, who came 

 to the conclusion, after siid experience, that he could not at the 

 same time serve God and take in gate-money ! You can grow 

 flowers or fruit; and, if so inclined, may find a market for 

 either. But Horticulture finds its truest exponent in the man 

 who prizes beauty and fragrance for their intrinsic excellence ; 

 qualities that make the world fairer and better, and whose peren- 

 nial loveliness and perfume would continue to charm even if 

 they did not fetch a dollar at wholesale. This Society was not 

 founded to sell fruit, but rather to eat it ; and therefore to 

 ensure that it shall be fit to eat. We learned long ago that we 

 could go further than Capiaumont or Clairgeau, and fare no 

 worse ! Besides, living some centuries after Shakespeare, we 

 have found abundant reason to difier from his somewhat careless 

 dictum that the Queen of Flowers, if dubbed Symplocarjius 

 foBtidus, would smell to my lady's taste. Our practice, like our 

 charter, should ever indicate progress. Now and then we may 

 blunder, following blind guides. Now and again we may go 

 astray, attracted by the lure held out by Mammon, and neglect- 

 ing the strait and narrow paths wherein Flora and Pomona 

 would fain confine their votaries. And, in the long run, the 

 profit to the individual, nor less to the Society, is greater, as we 

 manage. The Florist, or Pomologist, who can win premiums in 

 competition before the judges whom it is our fortune to possess, 

 may safely challenge impartial judgment at any horticultural 

 exhibition, I care not where held. It was so when Merrifield 

 and Salisbury swept the Massachusetts board of its prizes ; and 

 Blake and Hixon furnish constant proof that there is no degen- 

 eracy in the later generation. So may it be ever ; excellence 

 continuing our sole aim and ultimate attainment. 



We ofier premiums for superiority of Flowers, Fruits, or 



