president's address. ' 175 



And these constant comparisons of our products, though they may 

 come to have some appearance of sameness, are yet ever fresh, 

 and are having a wider influence upon ourselves and upon the 

 public in general than we are accustomed to realize. Let us sus- 

 tain our exliibitions by increased personal interest, and also by an 

 increase of our liberal prizes, as we have largely done for the 

 coming year. 



Still we are not to forget that there are other doors open for 

 influence, and it is well for us to be constantly watchful for any 

 opportunities to diff'use information, and to awaken and quicken 

 an interest in Horticultural pursuits. It was the cherished plan 

 of the founders of the Society to establish an experimental garden, 

 and it was with this end in view that Mt. Auburn was originally 

 purchased. Though the project was wisely abandoned for the 

 time, as involving a larger expense than our past population and 

 the condition of the cause would warrant, yet it is well to keep in 

 mind the possibility of some open door for usefulness, in connec- 

 tion with the projected public parks of our metropolis, and the 

 establishment of a collection of Plants, in some respects like the 

 Kew Gardens, or like that of the Royal Horticultural Society in 

 Regents Park, in London. Grave difficulties will attend any such 

 project, and we should be very cautious in committing the Society 

 to any doubtful experiment ; yet who of us does not desire that 

 Boston should have the honor and the profit of a collection worthy 

 of our country ! It is of more present importance for us to con- 

 sider whether we can exert a direct and positive influence upon 

 the public mind in respect to the interests of fruit culture in our 

 Commonwealth. As an illustration, let me take the Apple crop 

 in our State. The opinion is freely broached by many that it is 

 not a profitable crop, that the trees and the fruits are becoming 

 diseased, and that we shall gradually abandon the field to the 

 larger and fairer specimens from the West. It is said we must 

 substitute the Pear for the Apple in this section. Well knowing 

 that the Pear is the favorite fruit for our exhibitions, still I am 

 convinced that there is such a sense of the paramount value of 

 the Apple for public utility ; there have been such constant evi- 

 dences with us that the Apple can be cultivated to the utmost 

 perfection in the very heart of districts most infected with canker 

 worm, curculio, and other insects ; we have had such demonstra- 

 tion the past season of the absolute hardiness of this fruit ; and 



