202 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Chicago, fell considerably behind our display at Philadelphia, iu 

 the Centennial Exhibition. 



Benjamin P. Ware said the essayist had remarked that Massa- 

 chusetts horticulture was but slightly represented at Chicago. He 

 would ask if the Massachusetts Horticultural Society was at fault 

 for that apparent failure? He recollected that Mr. Hovey, of the 

 Massachusetts Commission on the World's Columbian Exposition, 

 came into this hall and delivered an address urging this Society to 

 take up the work of preparing a suitable exhibit of Massachl^^etts 

 Horticulture in the great Fair at Chicago, in 1893. A Committee 

 was appointed for that purpose, who invited the members of the 

 Society and others to make contributions from their horticultural 

 products, for the exhibition. 



The speaker was interested in the work and contributed to the 

 collection which was made, and some of his friends also contrib- 

 uted. Later on, he understood that a difference existed between 

 our Committee and Mr. Hovey, and that the latter had turned a 

 cold shoulder toward the Society. Afterward the several donors 

 of fruit for the State Exhibit were notified that it was not wanted. 

 The scanty horticultural exhibit from Massachusetts was not at all 

 au indication of what might have been furnished by the horticul- 

 turists of this State under different circumstances. The meagre 

 agricultural exhibit from this State may perhaps be attributed to 

 the same cause. The Commissioner visited Amherst and arrange- 

 ments were made with the officers of the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 College, the Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station, and 

 others, to have them furnish contributions illustrative of their 

 work. But after much preparation had been made by them, they 

 were notified that sufficient room could not be furuished for their 

 exhibits. This, however, did not appear at the exhibition, for the 

 space assigned to Massachusetts was not filled. He was proud 

 to know that the landscape architecture of Jackson Park was 

 designed by a Massachusetts man, a member of this Society, and 

 now the head of our Metropolitan Park Commission. During his 

 visit to the Columbian Exposition, Mr. Ware saw very much that 

 interested him greatly. But he felt deeply the reflections which 

 were cast upon the agricultural, and especially upon the horti- 

 cultural interests of Massachusetts, on account of the failure to 

 make a suitable exhibition of her products iu those departments of 

 industry. 



