100 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1865. 



It will be noticed that the increase of the Library is not so great, iu number 

 of volumes, as during the year preceding, although the intrinsic value of the 

 works added is believed to be superior. The chief cause of this deficit would 

 seem to be the failure, from indifference or otherwise, of the Secretary of the 

 Board of Agriculture of the Commonwealth to supply us with such duplicate 

 copies of the Transactions of kindred Associations, in other States, as he has 

 been wont to furnish heretofore. It will be a source of greafregret, should we 

 be obliged to discontinue the regular connection of these series that have been 

 placed on file upon our shelves. 



And the question can nowhere arise, more appropriately than now and here, 

 suggested as it was by the President of the Society in his able and exhaustive 

 Address at the Annual Exhibition : Shall the Transactions of the Society be pub- 

 lished in a creditable and permanent form ? But one or two of the excellent 

 Reports, which were received with so much approval, at that Exhibition, have 

 been published at all, and even these but imperfectly. As it was understood 

 that this matter would come before the Society for ultimate decision, the Secre- 

 tarv, after consultation with their authors, and with your President, determined 

 to withhold the Reports from the columns of the Press and await your final action. 

 Other benefits aside, the publication of our Transactions would tend to the 

 increase of the Library, by enabling us to interchange with other Societies. If 

 you shall conclude to publish the Transactions of this Society, it will become 

 necessary to devise some method of supervision. Your Secretary, while not 

 decllnino- a re-election, is convinced that he cannot much longer, in justice to 

 his own .interests, afi'ord to devote so much of his time to the affairs of the 

 Societv. He certainly could not add to his present responsibility the serious 

 task of preparing for the press a correct copy of the Transactions of the Soci- 

 etv during the past year, including a Caialogue of the Library, which it would 

 appear, on every account, expedient to comprise in any publication that may 

 be made. The method by which an effectual distribution among the members 

 could best be attained might remain a problem for subsequent solution ; never- 

 theless it would demand assiduous thought. 



As already intimated, the records of the Secretary show a gratifying increase 

 in the list of members of the Society. The large augmentation in 1863, had 

 justified a fear that the harvest was so closely secured as to leave but little for 

 the gleaners. But even that remarkable result, as I am happy to be able to 

 inform you, is now surpassed. A brief but explicit statement in detail will 

 show that since the last Thursday of February, A. D. 1862, when the Library 

 was first thrown open in its present location, there have been the following 

 accessions to its members : 



In 18G2, 19 I In 1863, 42 | In 1864, 49 



But after all, how slight is this increase, compared with what ought to be 

 achieved ! It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that there are men enough in 

 the city of Worcester alone, whose cultivation and natural tastes should attract 

 them to us, and to whom the trifling fee for admission could not be the occasion 



