PREFACE 



At tlie Annual Meeting of the Worcester County Horticultural Society, 

 holdeu on the fourth day of January, A. D. 1865, the Committee on Publication 

 were instructed to collect and publish the Transactions of the Society from the 

 year 1857 to the date of the meeting. This task, delegated by the Committee 

 to the Secretary, does not appear to require an elaborate Introduction or 

 Preface. All that it would seem indispensable to state is, that owing to the 

 lapse of time and the indifference of Chairmen of Committees, and, quite 

 possibly, other causes now inexplicable, many Reports are wholly lost. Such 

 is the case unfortunately, with the entire series for 1858. All that remained 

 to be done, to remedy this misfoi'tune, so far as practicable, was to transcribe 

 the lists of Premiums awarded, from the columns of the daily press, in which 

 they had happily been preserved. The courtesy of the proprietors of the Spy 

 and Transcript is cordially acknowledged. But the fact that the Society is 

 indebted to the files of newspapers, to complete a gap in the issue of its 

 Transactions, is of itself conclusive evidence that the action at the Annual 

 Meeting was neither inexpedient nor premature. That the publication involves 

 considerable expense is an objection which would be urged with equal force 

 against the very existence of the Society. 



The aim of the Society, as approved by the Committee, has been to include 

 all the matter that bore directly upon the professed design of the Society. It 

 is believed that nothing has been excluded from these transactions that could 

 tend, however remotely, to increase the knowledge and promote the science of 

 Horticulture within the County of Worcester, so far as the written contribu- 

 tions of our Members rendered such end attainable. 



Horticultural Hall, February 1865. 



