1867] SECRETARY'S REPORT. 39 



It may seem ungracious to Invite your attention once more to the inadequacy 

 of the present accommodations of the Society, in view of the munificence of 

 ■which it was so recently the object, and which was so appropriately announced 

 to you by the acting President, at the Annual Autumnal Exhibition. Yet thfi 

 bed of a Secretary, even of a Horticultural Society, is not always of Roses, 

 Besides, — Roses have their thorns. The condition of the Corporation, how- 

 ever, whether actual or prospective, must be laid before you ; and, in the 

 absence of the President, the duty devolves upon one who has themes enough 

 of another and varied nature, upon which to exhaust your patience. 



It must be obvious to all who have had ought to do with the Arrangements 

 for the Annual Autumnal Exhibition, that the space at their command was 

 cramped. Not — that there is insufficient room to contain all the contributions 

 which have been offered of late years : but that, by reason of the inadequacy 

 of the Hall, no opportunity is afforded for congenial or tasteful grouping. It 

 would be simply impossible to arrange Flowers and Fruits into distinctive 

 classes, without the employment of so many tables as to necessitate the exclu- 

 sion of the spectators. Of course, an Exhibition, with nobody to view 

 it, does not enter into your purposes. And yet it will be indispensable, to 

 insure justice in the awards of your Committees, that such classification should 

 be made, and that the articles entered by contributors for a specific competi- 

 tion, should no longer be lost to general observation, in a common indistin- 

 guishable mass. Premiums are proposed for collections of so many varieties 

 of Apples, or Pears, and also special Premiums for separate varieties deter- 

 mined by name. At present, not one, even of the Committees, can tell, 

 •without careful and tedious inquisition, to what objects their attention should be 

 addressed. And, in the growing difficulty of finding gentlemen competent and 

 willing to serve upon those Committees, any measure that may tend to abridge 

 or alleviate their labors, which, at the same time, promotes the aims of the 

 Society, ought not to be regarded with indifference. 



At the recent Annual Autumnal Exhibition, the arrangement of the Tables, 

 and the general distribution of the Contributions, which had continued essen- 

 tially unchanged from the earliest occupation of the Hall, were totally altered. 

 The benefits thereby attained were obvious to the most unaccustomed eye. 

 Beauty of expression, if the term may be employed, united with economy of 

 space, in its commendation. Paradoxical as it may appear, while more room 

 was occupied by the Tables, they also left more for aisles and passage- 

 ways. But it taxed our accommodations to the utmost. And the warning con- 

 veyed iu the unwonted profusion of Apples was intensified by the reflection, that 

 even that superb display scarcely equalled a moiety of the quantity which had 

 been exhibited in former years of plenty. Almost the entire space allotted to 

 hardy Grapes was usurped by a most strange, but welcome guest — the Peach. 

 Had the season been propitious for Grapes, it would be difficult to assign limits 

 to the excess of room required over that at command. 



