NOTES AND MEMORIES OF OUR EARLY HORTICULTURE. 23 



speaker could remember his grandmother's bed of hollj'hocks, 

 some of which were fully equal to those grown now. Then came 

 a time Avhen everybody wanted to grow everything, but now we 

 are going back to specialties. We grow fewer things and try to 

 grow them better. 



A. "W. Cheever, Agricultural Editor of the ' ' New England 

 Farmer," said he was bred upon a farm almost bare of fruits. 

 There was one " button " pear tree which occasionally bore a few 

 specimens scared}' larger than acorns, and which clung to the 

 twigs till after the leaves fell ; a single peach tree, a few dozen 

 old cider apple trees, and one or two that had been grafted. He 

 never knew his father to carry a barrel of good winter apples into 

 the cellar till trees of his (the speaker's) own raising came into 

 bearing. "When nineteen years old, he went to Hopedale and 

 worked in a market garden, and there first saw strawberries under 

 cultivation. It was in an old bed that the superintendent pro- 

 posed to plough under early in the season. Mr. Cheever saved 

 the bed till after fruiting by renting the land, and marketed the 

 crop by subletting to fellow workmen, retaining sufficient for his 

 own gratification. He walked home one day, twelve miles, carrj'^- 

 ing several quarts of his berries and a box or two of larger ones 

 purchased of a neighbor, expecting to create a sensation at the 

 old homestead ; but the next spring, when a few dozen plants were 

 purchased for setting, his father could find no spot on his hundred- 

 acre farm that he was willing to spare for such nonsense. There 

 were berries enough, he said, growing wild in the pastures. The 

 plants, however, were set, though under protest, and, after a crop 

 which sold at a better profit than potatoes yielded, there was no 

 further difficulty in finding room for strawberry plants or any 

 other fruits. He thought few of those who now enjoy fruit in 

 abundance realize how much the Horticultural Society has done 

 towards transforming deserts into gardens. 



Mrs. H. L. T. Wolcott said that she almost lost her love of 

 horticulture b}' visiting hen shows. Years ago she raised hens, 

 ducks, and pigeons. If you want a thing to be good, you must 

 devote yourself to it ; she hardly knew whether she liked roses or 

 fan-tailed pigeons best, but the improved specimens of both show 

 what can be accomplished by devotion to a purpose. She wanted 

 to know if she raises sweet peas, what she shall have to precede 

 them in her garden in the early summer. She spoke of her 



