370 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



color. The azalea, as a plant, is iu itself stiff, and the greater 

 pains are requisite to cover this up. The group should have been 

 more raised in the centre. On the other hand, the furtlier stand 

 of cinerarias, witli roses as a centre-piece, was too much raised in 

 the centre, and the effect was again lessened, but from an opposite 

 cause. 



There is one more point in which the example of our brothers 

 on the Continent might be profitably followed, and that is iu the 

 encouragement given to the young to engage in horticultural pur- 

 suits. Special prizes are offered to them for tlowers, fruits, and 

 the best cultivated plots of ground, and every effort is made to 

 awaken in them a taste for the cultivation of the eartli and to 

 employ the best methods. Ten years ago, in response to a request 

 signed b}' llufus Ellis, Henry W. Foote, and C A. Bartol, gentle- 

 men " interested in advancing a practical taste for horticulture 

 among the children of the laboring classes," the Massachusetts 

 Horticultural Society oft'ered prizes for Window Gardening. The 

 report of the Committee on this subject was significant: "Those 

 who have watched this movement from the first, while cognizant 

 of all the difficulties that lie in the way of all new departures, have 

 been encouraged by the interest manifested and the good results 

 shown. Letters from several gentlemen and ladies bear testimony 

 to the happy inlluence already noticed." We are glad to know 

 that the experiment has been repeated the present year and will 

 be next year. Is it not worth while encouraging the 300,200 

 children of the State of Massachusetts to instruct themselves in so 

 delightful a recreation ? And ma}- it not be hoped that the good 

 seed sown will result in turning some few from the dull routine of 

 a factory life, into the nobler occupation of tilling the soil and 

 becoming producers. 



The special features of the September exhibition held in con- 

 junction with the meeting of the American Pomological Society, 

 were the excellent display of foliage plants, — Crotons, Alocasias, 

 Drac£Enas, Marantas, and the like, so arranged as to combine the 

 harmonies of shading in the most thoroughly artistic manner, — the 

 line collection of tropical water lilies (ten different species,) all 

 grown out of doors and crowned with the great Victoria 7'egia, 

 whose gigantic leaves attracted universal attention, and the his- 

 toric orchid, the Viuida Sanderiana, whose value mounting up 

 into the tliousands, seemed to 1)0 in an inverse ratio to its beauty. 



