REPORT 



.OF THE 



COMMITTEE ON VEGETABLES^ 



FOR THE YEAR 1885. 



By CHAELf:S N. BRACKETT, Chairman. 



In submitting the followiug report, your Committee have the 

 pleasure of being able to say that the various vegetable exhibits 

 throughout the season have been equal in quality to those of any 

 previous year. The quantity shown at the Annual Exhibition was 

 perhaps not quite so great as in some former seasons, yet any 

 deficiency in this respect was we think more than made up by the 

 variety and superior quality of the exhibits. 



The Committee cannot but congratulate the Society on the good 

 results thus far attained in the department with which they are 

 connected. There has been an advance in quality from 3'ear to 

 3'ear in the vegetables exhibited, a constantly increasing interest 

 on the part of the competitors for its prizes, and a more general 

 attendance at its exhibitions by the public. When in these 

 exhibitions, familiar vegetables display from year to year a con- 

 tinually improving standard of quality, we may safely attribute 

 this continued increase in excellence rather to improved methods 

 of cultivation, than to transient and accidental circumstances, or 

 to exceptional conditions of soil or season. 



The policy of offering prizes instead of awarding gratuities, 

 has justified our favorable expectation dui'ing the past season. In 

 forced vegetables, during the months of January and Februar}^ 

 we had upon our tables more than double the quantity of exhibits 

 ever before seen at that period of the year. Many of the speci- 



