196 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The exhibitions of the year were with two exceptions well sup- 

 plied with fruit; one of these, the strawberry exliibition, came too 

 early even after it had been postponed a week, and some of the late 

 varieties were not ripe enough to show. Abington, a rather recent 

 introduction, was witliout doubt the most attractive strawberry on 

 the tables and took a great many prizes. This berry is as large as 

 Bubach, much the same shape, and a bright glossy red, of good 

 quality, and firm and attractive in appearance. The plant is 

 vigorous and healthy, growing well in all kinds of soil, but seems 

 to do better on a rather light loam. Its season is early and taken 

 all round this variety fills a long-felt want. Other new varieties 

 exhibited w^ere McKinley, by I. E. Coburn, and Barrymore, by 

 H. L. Crane, this latter being one of his seedlings exhibited last 

 year. The other exhibition, August 3, owing to the dry weather 

 was almost a failure for the fruit skown was of the poorest quality. 



All classes at the Annual Exhibition were well competed for and 

 the collections of apples brought out some very fine fruit. One 

 noticeable feature of this exhibition was the remarkably fine color 

 on the apples shown which was partly due to the fruit hanging 

 longer on the trees, owing to the mild fall w^eather; and then again 

 the dry summer produced cleaner apples as there were no black 

 fungus spots which are more common in a wet season. Pears were 

 numerous and these, too, were very clean and of good size. Grapes 

 while not as abundant as usual were good and particularly so was 

 a collection of fifty varieties from The T. S. Hubbard Co. of Fre- 

 donia, N. Y. This contained many varieties which are not grown 

 in this section and was of great interest to the grape growers of 

 Massachusetts. In the collection was the true McPike grape, 

 exhibited for the first time before this society. This grape has a 

 very large berry, is of delicious flavor, and attractive appearance, 

 although the bunch is small. A great many worthless varieties 

 have been sold for McPike, but it has been learned from good 

 authority that very few of the true vines were ever disseminated. 



The Bay State apple was shown for the first time at our exhibi- 

 tions by A. B. Howard of Belchertown (its originator). It ap- 

 peared to advantage and seems to have a future. This apple 

 comes later than the Gravenstein and fills a season not covered by 

 any other good quality apple. In appearance it is like the Graven- 



