1870] REPORT ON GRAPES AND OTHER FRUITS. 11 



REPORT ON GRAPES, PEACHES, &c. 



Edwin Conant, Chairman; Geoiige Jaques, S. V. Stoxe, T. M. Lamb, 

 Horatio Phelps, ot Worcester, Paul Whitin, George Cruickshanks, 

 of Whitinsville, F. M. Marble, of Grafton, and Joseph C. Lovell, of West 

 Boylston. 



The Committee on Grapes, Peaches, &c., respectfully report : 



That we have Teceived no translation of the " &c.," but suppose it means 

 unlimited jurisdiction, unless where expressly limited and sometimes where 

 it is. Filled to air-balloon dimensions with the importance of our position, we 

 neither mean to yield anything that belongs to us nor fail to claim many things 

 that do not. Whether we make, or follow the example of politicians, we mean 

 to assert our claims, right or wrong, especially wrong ; to have our own way 

 in questions of conflicting jurisdiction, notably on subjects we have no busi- 

 ness with. 



Our friend, Mr. George Thrall, of the Bay State Hotel, who is always very 

 entertaining at home, offered a curious vegetable product, for the declared 

 purpose of learning its name. We pronounce it a fungus, and wish that many 

 and larger fungi, sapping the vitality of the Republic, were transmuted into 

 like humble form and dimensions, and of as respectable a character. 



Dr. S. G. Priest offered very curious specimens of nature's freaks or neces- 

 sities in the form of many fruits and other objects, stated to be of the roots 

 of low hemlock taken from crevices of rocky acclivities of Mount Wash- 

 ington. 



Strawberry tomatoes, and their preserved fruit, were produced by Mrs. Ann 

 M. Newell, of Worcester, and preserved or canned pears, peaches, strawberries 

 and cherries, by Mrs. R. C. Dunlap, of Millbury. 



Miss N. T. Durell, of Worcester, exhibited a case of very beautiful wax 

 fruit and flowers, with imitations of jelly and other articles. 



Henry Munger, of Holden, produced pea-nuts, with the growing plant, and 

 this growth, interesting in itself, is doubly so from its association with the 

 names of some ruling legislators, and their chief employment. 



Approaching the great family of Grapes, we doff our hats, in deference to its 

 undoubted primeval repute, its limitless variety, its excellence told and sung in 

 all ages. The fruit culturists in the first garden must have had it, for no 

 theologian presumes that Adam and Eve could have lived without it, though 

 another article might have been available in the line of mantua-raaking. 



Those who assert that the earliest wine was unfermented, ought to fix their 

 date, for if we ascend no farther than Noah, the original package inspected by 

 him in excess, had a mischievous power ; and the gods of the later mythologies 

 of the Greeks and Rom-ans, sometimes tiring of their immortal nectar, used 

 espress.'id grape jui<^e with an effect so prejudicial to their moral conduct, as to 



