76 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1892. 



those times and the present, in the shape of a Greengage pluai 

 tree, of transmitted stock from a famous tree which my father 

 secured in the early " forties." I remember well that he once 

 took a plate of its fruit to the horticultural show, and that on a 

 visit to the hall I was frightened at the exhibit of many plates 

 of so-called " Greengages," which were very much larger than 

 ours. I felt, as they say now-a-days, that my father was " not in 

 it." But an impartial committee came and saw and tasted ; our 

 delicious fruit melted in their months, — and took the first prize, 

 for several years in succession. That same fruit still grows in 

 my grounds, and is highly appreciated by the small boys of the 

 neighborhood, — and the curculios. 



What principle led our fathers and prompts us to beautify our 

 homes and their surroundings, and to vie with one another in 

 the development of the choicest fruits and the most beautiful 

 flowers ? It is not pecuniary gain ; it is not the mere spirit of 

 rivalry. I attribute it to the sentimental side of our nature. 

 Do we not often see, as we drive in the country and pass by 

 some farm of which the general aspect betrays the shiftlessness 

 of the owner, — one little corner, near the house, where the 

 overworked and much abused housewife, actuated by the senti- 

 ment which is not altogether crushed out of her life, has 

 planted and cherished a little patch of flowers, the beauty of 

 which shall throw one single ray of sunshine across her rugged 

 path? 



Mr. Chase read some extracts from the diary of William 

 Lincoln, one of the founders of the Society, attesting his love of 

 trees and flowers, and his enjoyment in planting them and 

 watching their growth. He continued : — 



I believe that sentiment existed in the Garden of Eden, as it 

 exists to-day. It is sentiment that prompts us to celebrate such 

 anniversaries as this one. Sentiment regards a graceful elm or 

 maple as a more fitting ornament to a public way than is a 

 telegraph pole. Sentiment cherishes and protects our public 

 parks. It kept the post-ofiice oflT of the Common, and it will 

 never listen to any proposition to condemn the smallest patch of 

 that priceless legacy of our fathers to any other use than as a 

 place of assembly for the people in times of rejoicing or of 



