20 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1866. 



source, it still continues, at the expiration of fourteen (14) years, to seriously 

 embarrass our plans and hamper our usefulness. With an adequate rental for 

 the estate, which we may anticipate with reason in the future, our inducements 

 to contributors would be so great as to " compel them to come in." In diverse 

 and many ways would it be in our power to incite to generous rivalry and to 

 stimulate competition. If the veteran florist achieved, with customary facility, 

 the Society's plate, not our poverty but calm judgment would prevent his 

 humbler disciple from gathering a proportionate reward. Who shall say that 

 the temptation might not prove sufficient, however inadequate in itself, to foster 

 a habit and love of research into the illimitable and almost neglected domain of 

 Nature wherefrom a remedy, if not preventive, for the ravages of the ciirculio, 

 the coddling moth, the canker and currant worms ; and latest, as worst of all, 

 that potato worm which advices from the west represent as advancing eastward 

 at the leisurely rate of fifty (50) miles per annum; may at length be discerned. 

 That something must be done in the premises experience and reflection for the 

 last six (6) years have fully convinced your Secretary. Of what should be 

 attempted he is equally persuaded. 



It is perhaps a bold recommendation — the increase of debt as a method of 

 relief from existing obligations. Yet what other issue of escape from embar- 

 rassment remains to us, failing the plan which was recently so liberally 

 inaugurated and has since been so feebly prosecuted ? We might dispose of our 

 Hall, hire a room for our library and the displays of flowers and fruit contingent 

 and dependent upon its weekly opening, and use Mechanics Hall for our annual 

 AUTUMNAL EXHIBITION. Then our revenue — minus taxation and the cost of 

 official administration — would be exclusively applicable to the legitimate 

 purposes of the Society. Of course the occupation of a hall, large as is that of 

 the Mechanics Association, would exact of all our members for the success of 

 the annual autumnal exhibition, their cordial, earnest, and untiring co-operation. 

 With that, it is possibly not assuming too much to predict enhanced receipts, a 

 more widely diffused interest, and a progessive development of the principal of 

 that fund upon which we should have to depend for the construction of our 

 future Horticultural Hall. Otherwise, continuing as at present, what remains 

 and is incumbent upon us to do ? 



Our accommodations, ample at the time of the erection of the Hall, perhaps 

 adequate in a series of very unfavorable seasons, are yet entirely too limited for 

 a society such as this should be, and might easily be made. The aggregate 

 population of the county, (for it cannot be too constantly repeated, even if our 

 exoteric members choose by persistent neglect to attempt its dis-proof, that this 

 is a county society,) may not be perceptibly increased. But the inhabitants of 

 the city of Worcester, from whom our chief patronage is derived, whether in 

 receipts for admission, or dues of membership, have swollen from fifteen 

 thousand (15,000) to thirty-five thousand (35,000.) The recent large and 

 gratifying addition to our numbers, cliiefly of females, is attributable to the 

 charming attraction of that very class of contributions for which we should he 



