16 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1882. 



longitude : while, for diversity of production, letting alone its 

 excellence for the present, she is not obliged to usurp her 

 Y)Oshion— primus inter pares. And still, because of tliat very 

 diversity, there can scarcely be unity. What is the meat of one 

 man may be the poison of another. HaWs Early might come 

 up from Connecticut, as it has in former years ; and. with the 

 Cooledge and Foster in its company, challenge successful rivalry. 

 But, from three States, at least, there could be no response, in 

 Nature ; while such as Art might supply would not be tolerated 

 by honest yeomen. On the other hand, at a later date, — the 

 farmsteads of New Hampshire and Maine might fairly revel in 

 the golden glory of a superb liarvest. But, at the same time, the 

 Gardens and Orchards, perchance the tillage, along the lower 

 Connecticut and Thames; the Blackstone, and the Cliarles ; 

 would be rolled " together as a scroll," "the leaf falling off from 

 the vine, and the falling iig from the fig-tree." Here the 

 Astrachan and Bartlett were long sin(;e out of date ; sweet corn, 

 the Lima-Bean, and Tomato, might barely linger ; and a clump of 

 Salvia, or a scattering Aster, endure, to attest the wealth of the 

 floriage that once enriched the landscape. To the Northward, — 

 all those genera and species would be in their prime, of exceeding 

 abundance and in pre-eminent quality. 



Nevertheless the times and seasons : seed-time and harvest ; 

 are nowhere inexorably adapted to each other by Nature : nor 

 can the wit of man fit them to one and the same inevitable 

 groove. Parallels, whether of latitude or longitude, are not 

 simply, nor wholly, metes and bounds for a theoretical space. 

 They actually define limitations, or at least conditions of climate 

 within which Ceres, however inconsolable, must circumscribe her 

 wanderings. 



So far as concerns the interests of Horticulture, within the 

 County of Worcester, this Society might be satisfied to let well 

 enough alone. We could continue, as at present, inviting dis- 

 plays of Garden and Orchard products, each successive week, 

 thereby promoting rivalry and developing absolute quality. But 

 if, upon special occasions, other Exhibitions are to be held, under 

 indifferent and somewhat alien auspices ; prompted more by a 

 greed for gain than by the nobler motive of advancing local 



