66 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1863. 



have ever since been, and now are, active members — gave an impulse to Pear 

 culture, which has never abated. And your Committee submit, that there are 

 very few in the community who realize the great obligations they are under to 

 those pioneers in the good work. We have now arrived at a period when a 

 man having the care or being the owner of any land, who pays uo attention to 

 the cultivation of this fruit, forms an exception to the general rule. The nom- 

 enclature of the Pear, so extensive, and once so forbidding, and regarded as 

 beyond the comprehension of ordinary people, has become comparatively 

 familiar with nearly all who have taken any interest in the subject. And who 

 has not? 



So common now has the cultivation of this desirable fruit become — more 

 desirable still, since the Peach has become so nearly extinct — that always the 

 first question asked in the description of a man's homestead is : " What have 

 you for Pears?" For no man's plot of land is so small but there is room for 

 a Pear tree ; and combining, as that tree does, in an eminent degree, the useful 

 with the ornamental, few are so far wanting in taste and good sense as to neglect 

 the planting of it. To the influences of this Association in its transactions, 

 this universal attention and constant zeal, in the cultivation of this fruit in the 

 community now, is directly traceable ; thus giving to almost every one a luxury, 

 in comparative abundance, which but a few years since was enjoyed only by a 

 few. Nor has the influence of your Society stopped here : seeing the success 

 which has attended your efforts, others have taken up the work, and local soci- 

 eties have sprung up in almost every part of the county, emulating with com- 

 mendable zeal and activity, the example you have set them. 



In passing along the tables during the examination made by your Committee, 

 they have been gratified to find a decided and very marked improvement in the 

 quality of the fruit submitted to them. A change seems to have been made 

 by some contributors in their collections, by regarding quality as of more 

 importance than quantity ; a change which your Committee cannot but regard 

 as an omen of much good and still further improvement in the future. This 

 they do not say to discourage the bringing in of contributions, but rather for 

 the purpose of increasing contributions, and to excite a laudable emulation in 

 regard to the quality of specimens and varieties. The time has been, and 

 within a few years, when the great aim seemed to be to produce as many varie- 

 ties as possible, without regard to the quality of the kind or excellence of the 

 fruit — a multiplying of names, whether the fruit they represented was valuable 

 or worthless — as if "the largest and best collection" simply meant the longest 

 catalogue of names. It was an evil which perhaps was the result of novelty, 

 and which grew out of a desire to see how far the matter of " different varie- 

 ties" could be carried. Nevertheless it was a heresy, and one which became 

 80 firmly rooted that the Society found it necessary to adopt a rule instructing 

 Committees in cases of "largest and best collections" to "be governed by 

 quality rather than by the number of varieties merely." The salutary effect of 

 this rule was very soon noticeable. Contributors cut down the number of their 

 varieties, bringing only to the table such as were choice and valuable, or such 



