66 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1872. 



any margin iu favor of the cultivation of Strawberries, upon a large scale, 

 for the general market. In a jtropition.s season, the crop of ordinary or 

 poor varieties, produced in more southerly latitudes, is supplied in 

 quantities and at prices with which we cannot compete. The only pru- 

 dent course, in this vicinity, is to raise the standard of excellence, at the 

 same time developing the taste of the public ; cultivating only tho.se 

 varieties which yield best in hills, and which, thus grovvn, survive for 

 years without the trouble and expense of forming a new plantation. 

 Such superior fruit would command its own price in the market, and a 

 marked appreciation upon the tea-taljle of him who should succeed in its 

 pi'oduction. 



Raspberries suffered equally with Strawljerries, iu all cases where care 

 was not taken for their protection. Your Secretary has heretofore 

 asserted, in these Ileports, that no variety of this delicate fruit wliich 

 ought to be esteemed worthy of cultivation, can be grovvn prolital)]y for 

 successive years, unless the canes are laid down and covered over through- 

 out the Winter". Such have been his tixed conclusions, deduced from the 

 experience and observation of more than forty years, and running from 

 the earliest introduction of the Red and Yellow Antwerp, to tlie later 

 and richer fruition of Brinckle's Orange. And notwithstanding the re- 

 cent action of the Society, whereby the distinction of " Hardy " and 

 " Half-Hardy " Raspberries was sought to be arbitrarily established, he 

 thinks it not unbecoming to remark tliat his original convictions are un- 

 altered. It is true that the Black-Caps, so-called, will endure eitlier ex- 

 treme of heat or cold. But, then, a person must possess land by the acre 

 to c-row them; and, wlien grown, although technically Raspberries, they 

 will be found to ])Ossess little resemblance save in name to their choicer 

 congeners. The frequent rains of the Spring months, during the period 

 of intlorescence, exerted a very prejudicial intluence upon the fecundity 

 of this fruit. A notable diminution in tlie number of bees and other 

 winged insects, perhaps attrilnitable to the sevei ity of tlie Winter, by the 

 deprivation of their aid in the process of fertilization, was rendered yet 

 more obvious in a decrease of the crop. Nevertheless, in the whole realm 

 of Pomology, no genus can be cited, whose .species are surer, with propei' 

 culture and sufticient care, to render adequate returns for the trouble ex- 

 pended upon and exacted by them than those of the nobler varieties of 

 the Rubus Id;eus. 



The display of Currants, throughout the past season, has been remark- 

 able Nothing like it,, or at all approximating it, has been seen for yeai-s 

 upon the tables of the Society. No fruit belter merits cultivation: none 

 other so well repays it. And, it may be added with truth, until the 

 Abraxis Ribearia, the scholastic designation of a vulgar pest, compelled 



