60 WORCKSTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [ISTo. 



gained in that school, is never forgotten, secured a fair crop, mainly of 

 the European vai'ieties, by heavy mulching. But the fact remains that, 

 with an apparent or actual change in the character of the seasons, there is 

 but the barest possibility of securing a good and remunerative crop of 

 Strawberries without the aid of artificial irrigation. In most parts of the 

 City of Worcester, such assistance can be derived by a simultaneous 

 draught upon the private purse and the Municipal Keservoir. Through- 

 out the Count}', so hilh' and uneven, it is probable that there are few 

 homesteads near which a running stream cannot be diverted, or an other- 

 wise noxious bog be utilized. The titrawherry repays any cultivator for 

 exceeding pains and labor. 



Raspberries were in inferior supply and quality. It is true that some 

 fine lots of Brinckle's Orange, Northumberland Fillbasket and Hudson 

 River Antwerp were placed upon our tables, by growers whom no obsta- 

 cles daunt. But the general crop was insufficient to compensate for the 

 trouble taken in its culture. A chief cause of this deficit, in the opinion 

 of your Secretary, is to be found in the unwonted scarcity of winged in- 

 sects throughout the Spring. There were no pouring rains, during the 

 period of inflorescence, to drench or wash out the pollen. But it could 

 not escape the notice of a careful observer, that there was hardly a single 

 Wasp, or Honey-Bee, where there are usually dozens; and that fecunda- 

 tion, in so far as it needed help, was left almost wholly to the Bumble-Bee. 

 Doubtless the deep snows and intense cold of the Winter of 1872-3 had 

 much to do with this decimation of bur insect-/rte?i(:Zs. 



In nothing is there greater need of exact phraseology than in Horticul- 

 ture. Our Western Pomologists write long essays upon the proper growth 

 and treatment of the Mas^jberry, and, at the end, one finds that our old 

 acquaintance, the Thimbleberry, has *been the subject of discourse. 

 Now, your Secretary has no idea of dissuading from the culture of even 

 the Thimbleberry, if a person has time and land to waste. But he pro- 

 tests most emphatically against the publication of rules for the culture 

 and development of a genus, which are applicable only to its species/erae 

 naturae. That which may be advisable for the Rubus Occidentalis is ab- 

 solute loss in the case of the Rubus Idicus. Thus the Horticultural jour- 

 nals tell us to cut off Raspberry canes at three feet high — a general di- 

 rection, without exception of species. That your Secretary ha^i had some 

 success in growing superior varieties has been manifestetl to you at suc- 

 cessive Summer Exhibitions for the last decade. Until the present cal- 

 endar year, not a cane, intended for fruiting, was ever shortened an inch. 

 In the Autumn of 1872, being somewhat occupied in grading the lawn of 

 the First Parish, in this City, he entrusted the preparation of his Basp- 

 berries for the Winter, to one of those imported professors, in whom the 



