38 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1892. 



Thus fifty years ago to-day was this institution launched upon 

 the world as a corporate body. Since that time what momentous 

 events have transpired. One and a half times the total popula- 

 tion of the globe has been harvested by the grim destroyer, death. 

 Eighteen new States have been added to the American Union. 

 Our population has increased from 17,000,000 to more than 

 60,000,000. The mineral resources of California and the West 

 have been discovered and developed. The slaves of the South 

 emancipated. Great wars have been fought which have changed 

 the map of Europe and the world. Discoveries and inventions 

 in electricity, in physics, in physiology, in medical science, in 

 chemistry, have revolutionized society. 



The city of Worcester was at that date a modest shire town 

 of 8,000 inhabitants, with its Board of Selectmen and other 

 town officers — with seven churches and three meeting-rooms, 

 where to-day are sixty houses of worship. 



Instead of tliose noble institutions of learning which now dot 

 our hills and make our city famous ; instead of those elegant 

 structures for the public schools with a small army of instructors ; 

 instead of facilities which fill the whole course of scientific 

 and professional study as well as post-graduate pursuits in special 

 lines; the educational advantages of Worcester were limited to 

 twenty modest school-houses, with about two dozen teachers, and 

 a few private schools. 



Changes almost as great have been the fortune of this Society. 

 It started with a name but without a local habitation, and with- 

 out the funds wherewith one might be obtained. 



During the first few years of its infancy it seems to have led a 

 nomadic life, anchored to no particular location but renting the 

 most convenient hall, as the time approached for holding* its 

 annual exhibition. At these annual exhibitions no premiums 

 were awarded, or if awarded none were paid. Its officers and 

 committees served without compensation. Its only source of 

 revenue for the payment of the rent for the hall of exhibition 

 and the necessary incidental expenses came from the proceeds 

 of the admission fee of twelve and a half cents. Whatever 

 remained over from these proceeds, was carefully husbanded 

 until in 1846, the sum of something like twelve hundred dollars 



