66 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1876. 



hear from our institutions of learning, or men of science, when such 

 imminent danger threatens an important interest of the Commonwealth, 

 is that " State Entomologist (!) Packard discourages the application of 

 " Paris Green, on the ground that it is an expensive and dangerous 

 " poison." The entire State is excited, watching with kindly interest, 

 or pitying curiosity, the frenzied efforts of i)olitical parties for reform 

 within themselves. But when the material welfare of the Common- 

 wealth is imperilled, a solitary voice is heard warning the gardener and 

 farmer against the use of a safeguard which has approved itself efficient 

 and innocuous. Universal experience from the Mississippi to the 

 Hudson is contemptubusly ignored; and conceited science, as so often 

 before — exclaims in self-complacent serenity — "So much the worse for 

 the facts!" 



** The man recovered from the hite. 

 " The dog it was that died. " 



■ The employment of White Hellebore against the Currant-Worm, 

 Ahraxis grossulariata, was similarly discouraged. Yet man has con- 

 tinued to dust it over his bushes; and life, not death, has been in the 

 breath of his nostrils. Caution is demanded of us in every work of life 

 But we cannot refrain from walking, because we might stumble and fall. 

 Kor should we reject an experience founded upon thousands of actual 

 tests and thoroughly justified by them all. 



The extreme and, if tradition can be trusted. Centennial heat to 

 which Massachusetts was subjected during the Summer of 1876, seriously 

 affected the products of our Gardens and Orchards. The season of early 

 fruit was hastened by at least a week, although frequent showers in June 

 measurably promoted and sustained the fecundity of the Strawberry. Of 

 this, plantations had been much winter-killed, owing to the sparseness 

 of snow ; yet a propitious Spring renovated the stools and aiforded a 

 crop which was perhaps a fair average. But the Drought was extreme 

 at the proper time for the Raspberry to ripen ; and some (not wholly 

 unskilled) growers had to content themselves with pints instead of their 

 accustomed pecks. There can be no doubt that the cultivation of the 

 Blackberry by our members has almost wholly ceased, although the 

 discontinuance of our Weekly Exhibitions prevents any positive test of 

 the fact. But the competition with the peach is too much for it ; and 

 a temperature of 106° in the shade is oppressive to the man who can 

 only look for a ninepence pur quart. A curious fact, corroborating the 

 observations of a few years ago, when the season was very similar, is 

 the effect of such torrid heat upon the Pear. Some of the choicer, 

 thinner-skinned varieties, have proved, when thoroughly matured, to be 



