10 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1883. 



the surface corresponding to the amputation above. When 

 withdrawing the spade, any man of ordinary skill can easily 

 transpose the earth so that the roots will be sufficiently buried. 

 If you would take the trouble, however, to lift and re-set each 

 bush ; and you will be surprised to find how quickly^ and at 

 what slight cost of labor, it can be done ; you would be amply 

 repaid. Shortening in of the side shoots is a wise measure ; as 

 greater rigidity is thus confirmed in the main stems, enabling 

 them to bear up under their augmented burden of products. 

 English customs of cultivation should tincj as little tolerance, or 

 imitation, in our climate and with our torrid suns, as does the 

 English love for the Black Currant, — so utterly distasteful and 

 even repulsive to the Vankee palate. The Currant-bush, it is 

 true, yields its grateful fruit throughout the fervent heats of 

 Summer: but its wood appreciates shade, as well as does that of 

 the Cherry ; either of them cracking, scalding, or exuding their 

 very life-sap, when too openly exposed and hotly scorched. 

 And, — most essential, — do not be stingy of stable manure I Use 

 night-soil whenever you can without ofience: resting confident in 

 the actual experience of those who have tried it, that nothing else 

 is 60 efficacious, or productive of such ample returns. 



Art^ thus, — without fibre or pith, — is a major part of the 

 mental food wherefore we are made to pay roundly. The Sun- 

 day newspaper, with its conflicting hash of politics and theology ; 

 with its tete exalte and feet of miry clay ; occasionally ? — slops 

 over ! And, in lieu of now, my beloved brethren I we enter 

 upon seventeenthly I startles the tired reader with such concen- 

 trated bathos, as the subjoined : — 



" The born aiistocrat believes in blood, and after all. in the true 

 sense, it is the blood that we want. The leaves of the English Elrns, 

 on Bo.ston Common, are as fresh to-day a.s they were in June: while 

 the American Elms are diy and withered already* with the drought. 

 The one has h>een forever invigorated by English fogs and has got the 

 habit of vitality in its texture. The other has grace and beauty, but 

 is weak in the struggle for existence. This illustrates the present 

 weakne.ss of Amei"ican life. The demand for strength and force was 

 never so great ; the fr»rcei« which are behind strong men and women 

 were never so weak, and are growing weaker eveiy day." 



• September 22d, A. D. 1883. 



