268 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



plants had been sunk in the ground in the sunny yard during the- 

 summer, for a period of ten years, and returned to the window in 

 the early Fall. 



In another window, where seventy' pots were exhibited, every 

 plant had been raised either from seed or from slips collected in. 

 that hap-hazard way, well-known and practiced by lovers of 

 flowers. Oranges and lemons were growing as thrift}^ plants. 



In another window — the one that received the first prize, a 

 Frost's Microscope, — every one of the seventy plants was in 

 perfect order. Vigorous growth, carefully trained stems of 

 erect or twining plants, freedom from the trace of insects, and 

 tasteful arrangements in very crowded space, attested the skill 

 and industry of the exhibitor. 



In one public school-room in the Roxbur^' district, hundreds of 

 plants, many of them in full bloom, made the visitors wish that 

 they might have studied in company' with such beautiful and 

 fragrant flowers. 



A collection of one hundred pots in a home in the suburbs, 

 included plants of Pelargonium, Geranium, Ivy, Oxalis, Calla, 

 Tradescantia, Petunia, Palm, Heliotrope, Rose, Verbena^ 

 Senecio, and Carnation. Ignoring the plans adopted by the 

 Committee that each plant should be upright and symmetrical, 

 these had been trained toward the glass, thus offering to the 

 traveller a gorgeous display of brilliant blossoms which, contrasted 

 with the deep green of the leaves, made a picture rarely equalled, 

 and in the judgment of the visitors, never excelled. 



Considering the educational effect on children, in or out of the 

 family ; the stimulus of a prize, even in the neighborhood, the 

 Committee felt authorized to bestow five prizes — books or their 

 equivalent in cash, — and Certificates of Merit with the seal of the 

 Society, on the competitors in Boston, Dorchester, Maiden, Rox- 

 bury, Chelsea, and West Dedham. 



Before special work in the spring commenced, two special prizes 

 were granted for Gloxinias raised from seed and grown in 

 windows, although such prizes were not advertised. 



The Committee printed and issued, in response to continued 

 demands for such instruction, a pamphlet containing simple 

 directions as to the preparation of soil and size of pots needed, 

 together with a list of native plants readily found in the suburbs 

 of Boston, which must be considered as the headquarters of the 



