1868.] • president's remarks. 59 



REMARKS OF GEORGE JAQUES, Esq., President 



On the occasion of (he Awrirdine/ of the Preniiums of the Wor- 

 cester Countij Horticultural Sociehj, on Thursdajj erodvg, Sept. 

 17, 1863. 



Ladies and Gentlemen of ilie Worcester County Hortlcidfural Society : 



The hour for the reading of the reports of the several Committees has arrived. 

 But before the Chairmen of these Committees make known to you the results of 

 their examinations, I avail myself of the opportunity to congratulate you on 

 the success of the present Annual Exhibition. Were T to pronounce this display 

 of Fruits and Flowers to be one ot the most chaste and beautiful to which the 

 Society has ever invited the public, I should but repeat what I have sevei'al 

 times heard to-da}'. But as a comparison between one of your exhibitions and 

 another is not always easy to be made, I think it better to say that there is now 

 in this Hall a fuller representation of all the most valuable Fruits and Vegeta- 

 bles, with a smaller proportion of the worthless sorts, than there ever was 

 before. That the Floral Department of this Exhibition surpasses what we 

 have had, on any former occasion, is quite beyond dispute. 



It is now twenty-three years since the preliminary steps were taken toward 

 the formation of this Society. Those who remember the condition of Horti- 

 culture in Central Massachusetts then, in 1840, contrasted with what we may 

 well be proud of now, in 1863, will hardly accuse me of extravagance in assert- 

 ing that the progress which we have made in less than a quarter of a century 

 is greater and of more value than all that horticultural science and industry 

 had previously accomplished here since the wolf and savage prowled over the 

 grounds where all this profusion of beauty around you was grown. 



Leaving out of the account the Pears and Flowers which were contributed 

 by gentlemen of Boston and its vicinity, the one solitai;y dish of Peaches pre- 

 sented by an enterprising individual, and a very few quite ordinary Vegetables, 

 your first exhibition comprised little else than a meagre but confused collection 

 of Apples and Pears, of which only a very small number were designated 

 correctly by name. 



Without including the splendid products of green-house cultivation before 

 you, your tables are now laden with most bt-autiful specimens of almost all the 

 valuable varieties of Fruits and Flowers which are known in the world and 

 which our climate or the season of the year will admit of being here. These 

 Pomological and Floral attractions no longer gratify the eye merely ; but, as 

 they are now exhibited, labelled with their true names, any one desiring the 



