ANNUAL REPORT 



EDWARD W. LINCOLN, 

 Secretary and Librarian of Worcester County Horticultural Society. 



To the Meinhtrs of the IVorcester Cuiuiti/ Horticultural Society : 



In submitting his final report, at the close of his tenth (lOth) consecutive 

 year of official service, your Secretary may be pardoned for indulging in a 

 brief retrospect and comparison. At the commencement of the past decade, the 

 entire number of names, borne upon detached and imperfect memoranda, was 

 six hundred and eighty-two (082). Of this aggregate, two hundred and four- 

 teen (214) were, long since, gathered to their fathers. During his individual 

 tenure of office, your Secretary has issued certificates of membership to four 

 hundred and fifteen (4:15) applicants, of whom seven (7) are known to have 

 deceased subsequently. The total number of names now registered upon the 

 revised and manuscript roll, including alike the living and dead, amounts to one 

 thousand and ninety-seven (1,097). So that, after making the proper deduction 

 for cases of mortality, it would appear that there are eight hundred and seventy- 

 two (872) accredited and living members of the Society. This aggregate is, 

 however, doubtless excessive, since the only means of ascertaining the death 

 of a member has been, as it is still, from the obituary columns of the public 

 press, or from common notoriety. 



The magnitude of the Annual Autumnal Exhibition, and the contribution 

 thereto of articles by the members, have advanced in equal progression. In 

 18G2, (there having been no exhibition in 1861,) the whole number of articles 

 upon the tables was twenty-one hundred and seventy-two (2172). In 18G9 and 

 1870, the aggregate was, as follows: 



