28 AVORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1866. 



A valuable and quite extensive assortment of vegetable seeds was seasonably 

 received from Hon. John D. Baldwin, and widely distributed among the mem- 

 bers of the society. Should new or choice varieties be discovered among these, 

 it is hoped that information of the fact will be communicated to the Secretary. 

 It is believed that the Newington Wonder Bean may fairly claim a high rank 

 in its own class, although the experience of another year should be awaited 

 before a positive decision. 



By a communication from the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, sub- 

 sequent to the last annual meeting, your Secretary was informed that ten (10) 

 copies of " Harris on Insects" would be subject to the disposition of the society, 

 to be awarded as premiums. Such awards have been made and the volumes are 

 received and will be distributed in accordance with your order. 



Sevei-al years have now elapsed since, by authority of the trustees, public 

 notice was given that a gentleman of the city of Worcester had empowered the 

 Worcester Horticultural Society to offer a premium of $30 for the best essay 

 upon shade and fruit trees — the most valuable kinds and the most suitable for 

 culture. A widely extended circulation was given to this offer. Quite a num- 

 ber of essays were received in response, which were delivered to a committee, 

 suggested by the liberal donor, consisting of Samuel F. Haven, Esq., Hons. 

 J. Milton Earle, and D. Waldo Lincoln. From that time to this the commit- 

 tee have given but an "uncertain sound.'' It is understood that no award was 

 made, no one of the essays precisely meeting the requisitions of the donor in 

 his original proposition. But it would seem that the competitors are at least 

 entitled to know what was the decision, if any. Certainly the society owes 

 something to its own good name, having held out inducements, far and near, 

 through its officers, which those ignorant of the facts, may wrongly imagine that 

 it now desires to disclaim or repudiate. 



At the last session of the general court, a proposition was introduced to pur- 

 chase a number of copies of a work by Mr. E. A. Samuels, upon the '' Birds of 

 Massachusetts," for distribution, through the agency of the agricultural and 

 horticultural societies of the commonwealth. Of the value of that particular 

 work your Secretary entertains no individual or precise estimate. But he can- 

 not too strongly express his conviction of the imperative necessity for the diffu- 

 sion, throughout the community, of a more correct and exact knowledge of the 

 character and habits of our birds. Anything — it matters little what — that will 

 thoroughly cure the existing sickly sentimentality about the American robin. 

 Your Secretary, in vindication of his position heretofore assumed, has spent 

 much time, and lost some Christian grace that he could illy spare, in watching 

 this feathered nuisance. In the absence of strawberries with which to tickle its 

 dainty palate, it gorged itself upon cherries. When that fruit, so rare and un- 

 wonted, was gone, the black-cap raspberry was not disdained. But to measure 

 the full capacity of an appetite almost insatiate, the despairing cultivator must 

 observe its ravages among pears. Nothing less than the Bartlett, Belle Lucra- 

 tive, and Seckel will serve its fastidious taste. The fabled rush of the Harpies 

 to their gluttonous feasts was as nothing compared to the flocking of these birds 



