52 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1872. 



mail of Comiuiltees. Xor was this duty, wIilmi once assumed, ever 

 slighted b}- him, as the vohime of your publislied Transactions amply 

 attests. He invariably found time to make personal inspection of all articles 

 within his especial jurisdiction, esteeming it a just, if inade([uate, return 

 for the effort of the contributors that they should at least receive honor- 

 able mention. His interest was esjiccially manifested in the original 

 preparation of our " Select List of Fruits." Constant in attendance 

 upon all of those earlier discussions that did so much to revive the dor- 

 mant interest of the community, his mature experience was of essential 

 benetit in helping toward the formation of definite conclusions upon a 

 multitude of disputed (piestions. You all recall the active part taken by 

 him, in the Spring of this very year, while that " Select List of Fruits " 

 was in process of revision. He never failed to express to your Secretary, 

 whenever they chanced to meet, his gratification at the renewal of those 

 discussions, emphasizing his purpose to do all within his power to render 

 them popular and useful. 



Cut short in the meridian of his days, with faculties unimpaired, and 

 energies fairly directed to the benefaction of his fellow creatures, — may 

 it not be his decisive as it is his just epitaph, 



"i^mt.s curvnaf opus.'''' 



The city of his nativity, through its constituded authorities, attended 

 his obsequies ; the officers of yt)ur Society aided in bt-ariiig iiis mortal 

 remains to the grave. 



" Afterlife's (itful fever, he sleep? well." 



The Library is in its usual good condition and has continued, through- 

 out the past year, to supply entertainment combined with exact instruc- 

 tion to such of the members as wished to consult its volumes. But few 

 elaborate works, exclusively devoted to Horticultural science remain to 

 l)e acquired ; nor is it likely that many will be published hereafter, of 

 value as containing the mature results of original and exhaustive research. 

 The worth of Libraries devoted to a special branch of human speculation, or 

 knowledge, is not to be measured by the greater or less array upon their 

 shelves. A single sentence of " What I Know about Farming," if in 

 point of fact I do know it, may be of vastly more benetit to humanity 

 than whole pages of "All Toil Irksome" or " How to Live Without 

 Labor." In the judgment of the Librarian, the richest fruits of contem- 

 poraneous inquiry and culture, will be gathered from the serial publica- 



