12 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, [1882. 



I 



upon the fit of a new pair of boots, or the bias in a first party 

 dress. 



There can no longer be a reasonable doubt that, in this County 

 at least, the Grape is to be surely depended on for a crop. 

 After such a twelvemonth as we have just experienced, little 

 remains in the nature of climatic changes, or extremes, to 

 astonish or work ill. The complaint of our most extensive 

 viticulturists is rather of loss by the Rose-Bug ; whose ravages 

 are alike sharply felt along Olcan Street or upon the hill-sides 

 of West Boylston. Would that iron-clad insect but " invite his 

 soul to loaf " in some vast wilderness ; could some practicable 

 mode of efi^ecting his destruction only be devised ; it would be 

 the most unmixed blessing that could be bestowed upon Horti- 

 culturists everywhere. But it is almost ludicrous to attempt 

 hand-picking : wliile, to all external applications, they have a 

 hide as callous as that of a hack politician. What may be 

 considered as settled, however, is, that Grapes will ripen out- 

 doors, in three years out of four, if allowed a half-chance ; 

 exacting, at that, less trouble and time for their cultivation than 

 any other fruit that can be named. It is of interest, as it may 

 be useful, to record the fact that the Kogers vine, belonging to 

 your Secretary, heretofore mentioned as covering a Pear-tree, 

 survived the terrible exposure of the last Winter wholly 

 unharmed; when others, comparatively sheltered, were split 

 open by the frost, or killed down to their roots. May it not be 

 that the canes of the Grape, if suffered to vibrate with the 

 winds, will continue as unaffected by the cold as the limbs of 

 the tree to which its tendrils are attached ? 



Is the list of Grapes, virtually recommended by this Society 

 because placed in its Premium-Schedule ; meagre enough at best ; 

 creditable to an organization pronounced by Marshall P. Wilder 

 only not the first in the Union ? Brig?iton, Concord^ Delaware^ 

 Duchess^ Lady^ Moore^ Prentiss^ I'ocklington^ Worden ! and, bj' 

 way of benediction for the congregation as it separates, ^'' three 

 chisters of any variety^'' — not excepting those bunches from 

 Eschol. Many that are new and untried; some which do not 

 improve upon acquaintance; of the entire list but one — the 

 .Delaware, — to which the first rank can be accorded, for a 



