8 Worcester county aoRTtcuLTtiRAL society. [1870. 



the ante-room of its ball, which is open every Thursday afternoon, for the de- 

 livery of books to members. The increasing number of persons availing them- 

 selves of the privilege of the library is evidence of a greater appreciation of its 

 value. 



I have before contrasted the former and the present condition of the Society. 

 During the last thirty years it has diffused a large amount of valuable informa- 

 tion in this community in relation to the cultivation of fruit, enabling the 

 beginner to select the most approved varieties without the loss of time and 

 expense incident to ignorance or experimenting ; but ours is one of the cases 

 where the work is never completed. There is always room for improvements 

 and more laborers, and our successors may, thirty years hence, be enabled to 

 point as triumphantly to their progress as we have done to our own. 



The funds of the society are now sufficient to enable us to add a large 

 amouut to our present liberal premium list, if by this pecuniary inducement it 

 is thought that we can advance the objects of the society. 



The attractions of all the departments might be greatly increased, if a larger 

 number of the persons who have fine fruits and flowers would take the slight 

 trouble that is necessary to gather a few specimens and send them to the ex- 

 hibition ; there are hundreds of gardens gladdening the owners with the profu- 

 sion of such fruits, who do not seem to realize that to the influence of this 

 society on some former owner, if not on themselves, they may owe their present 

 feast of good things, and who certainly ignore the responsibility all are under 

 to aid in any good cause. Our friends throughout this County should remem- 

 ber that ours is not an association confined to this city and vicinity. It is the 

 County Society, — the parent of all, and that they all have here a right, a duty 

 and a welcome ; in their devotion to their own rural societies they should not 

 forget the attachment and service that is due to the parent. 



As to the details of the present exhibition, if I should speak, it would be 

 overreaching on the province of the various committees to the hearing of whose 

 reports this evening in appropriated. 



In conclusion, I will simply add, believing that as the soil produces best 

 under a rotation of crops, so the growth of the Society will be promoted by 

 rotation in the office of President, that at the end of the present terra I shall 

 retire from the office which through your kindness I have held for the past 

 four years. 



