1870.] secretary's report. 29 



Your Secretary Las had no personal experience, recently, with the Black- 

 berry. A tew stools, planted many years ago, of the New Rochelle, have 

 furnished abundant employment ever since in the attempt at their thorough 

 extirpation. But, if the present season is a sample of those which are to fol- 

 low, it is more than probable that the owners of large plats, now bristling with 

 a chevaux de frise of blackberry spines, will wish themselves in the position of 

 Othello, with their "occupation gone.'" 



The culture of the Grape, during the past year, has been rewarded with un- 

 exampled success. It has appeared to matter little in what position were the 

 vines, nor under what conditions of soil or treatment. Delaware and Concord, 

 the exquisite lona and the fine numbers of Rogers, each and all vindicated their 

 character, and demonstrated the adaptation of a dry season to their constitu- 

 tion and needs. With the growing tendency toward the extension system of 

 treatment as opposed to immoderate pruning; with a better understanding of 

 the requisites for profitable culture, as combined in natural motion, adhesion 

 and ascension of the shoots from a good, but not over stimulated soil ; we deduce 

 from the experience of the past favorable auguries for the future of viticulture, 

 under propitious skies, even in our own County and Commonwealth. Years of 

 hope deferred may well be spent in the assurance of such a return at last. This 

 Society can, with a clear conscience, assume all the responsibility involved in 

 the advice to its members to plant the vine. 



Of the Apple and Pear what can be said that is not familiar to you all ? Trees 

 that have been barren, literally for a generation, have bowed their limbs to the 

 earth under their burden of fruit. But it may be well to make a record of the 

 fact, for future reference, that scarcely a drop of rain fell during their entire 

 period of inflorescence. Nor should the premature and unseasonable ripening 

 and decay of pears (the autumnal varieties more especially), escape notice. 

 The la£t Beurre Bosc of your Secretary rotted at the core and disappeared on 

 the eighth of October. The Beurre Langelier is reported ripe at that time, 

 while the Beurre d'Anjou is accredited by the Doyen* of our Society with ma- 

 turing, in fit condition to eat, upon the tree. The Winter Nelis, whether gath- 

 ered or fallen, even now tempts the palate. Bow different from the crop of ' 

 1869, superior specimens of which were exhibited, in perfection, by our excel- 

 lent Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, as recently as May 5th of 

 the current year. And yet, while this is true of the later varieties, the Bartlett 

 never was in better or more prolonged keeping. 



It is to be hoped that the crop of apples has not been so sadly demoralized. 

 Should, however, the Greening and Baldwin require immediate consumption 

 after gathering, there may indeed be found some trifling advantage in that 

 infelicitous and untimely appointment of Thanksgiving, by Federal authority, 



Hon. J. M. Earle. 



