6 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIEri^ [1883. 



somewhat better than its fellows. It was extracted from a 

 stone-wall; and, with higher cultivation, the fool of Nature is 

 surprised at the subsequent increase in fecundity and quality. 

 The Glacier first ; and the Cyclone, which the Occidentalis 

 unfortunately has always with it; can deracinate and transplant. 

 But foresight, assiduity, and perseverance, must be taken into 

 our account with the election and eclecticism of species : nor can 

 any of them be omitted with safety, from the calculation, if you 

 would ensure the survival of the fittest. Here and there a 

 Raspberry is advocated because of superior hardiness. Now let 

 it be repeated here, as always in these Reports, that there was 

 never yet a variety of the species Idoeus that could endure the 

 winters of Massachusetts, uninjured. Nature may be circum- 

 vented : open defiance is never successful. It is not meant to 

 deny that, now and then, a variety may have survived a season 

 of average frost, to all appearance, without immediate injury. 

 Such has been the experience of the writer with the Philadel- 

 phia, which is not worth cultivating : and to the like eflfect is the 

 testimony of members of this Society, concerning the more valu- 

 able Clarke, Cuthbert, or Franconia. But the contention is, that 

 it is a risk; — one which no grower can afford to take. The 

 canes may live without protection : the chances are ninety-nine 

 (99) to one (1) that they will be killed outright, or rendered 

 worthless. " The constitution of the plant is enfeebled by ex- 

 posure to harsh climatic vicissitudes ; and it falls into a gradual 

 decline, furthered by the stimulating manure supplied to arrest 

 it, and accelerated by the unnatural crop that it is thereby forced 

 to yield. You may be told plausible tales of what this or that 

 grower has done, who leaves his Raspberry canes erect and 

 uncovered. But you would do well to reserve full faith and 

 credit ; unless you are of those fatuous fools who repose blind 

 faith in the audacious liars ! whose pedigree is deep in the blood 

 of Ananias and Sapphira : who are rioters in the get of ancestry ; 

 and whose fancy stock is endowed with the miraculous power of 

 doubling or trebling its own weight, annually, by simply passing 

 it, in solution, through a bag ! Well was it said that faith 

 might remove mountains. Yet, — ever since, while the stint con- 



