24 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1883. 



remunerative, — that is, they do not attract the _^eneral public in num- 

 ber sufficient to make them pay ; but they are of very little real value 

 to horticulturists as compared with the committee meetings. By aban- 

 doning in part, at least, the Great Show, one source of expense will be 

 materially lessened ; while by improving and enhancing the interest of 

 the committee meetings,* the Fellows at large would get as much or 

 more for their subscriptions than they now do. 



'' Chiswick, and the committees, in fact, should be the main things 

 to which the energy of the Society should be devoted. 



"The duties of local committees or local secretaries should be, to 

 coiumuuicate at intervals to the parent Society information as to local 

 horticulture; — as what peculiar systems of culture are adopted; or 

 what varieties of Apple, Pear, Potato, or what not, do best in the par- 

 ticular locality : — in fact, to act as scouts for the parent Society ; which, 

 in return, should keep the provinces au courant with what is done in 

 London, and, by the medium of Chiswick, distribute such grafts, seeds, 

 or plants, of new or improved kinds, as could fairly be distributed with 

 out interfering with legitimate trade. "f 



The Nineteenth Bi-ennial Session of the American Pomo- 

 LOGiCAL Society was duly held, in Philadelphia, during the 

 second week of September, last. The dates usually selected for 

 those Sessions are about as untimely as they could well be for 

 Massachusetts: especially since it was determined to invite a 

 simultaneous display, from all parts of the Republic, of their 

 favorite fruits. September is the month wherein, from time 

 immemorial, our Harvest shows are appointed : and the question 

 must necessarily be forced upou us, biennially, whether of two 

 things, each eminently desirable, shall be preferred. Such 

 election is difficult, perhaps invidious ; and its necessity might 

 well be obviated. At any rate, it would seem that the latitude, 

 of the locality chosen, shall be considered, whenever a Pomo- 

 logical Exhibition is invited: in whicli event, the same week 

 would not hold good for Massachusetts, Georgia, Illinois, or 

 Pennsylvania. 



1 have suggested, heretofore, that it might not be pre- 

 sumptuous for a Society, so firmly established as our own, to 

 contemplate a session of the Pomological Society here, in 

 Worcester. We could accustom ourselves to the idea ; and, if 

 not in the immediate future, perhaps common consent might 



* Fairly equivalent to our own Weekly Exhibitions. [E. W. L.] 

 t Gardener's Chronicle, Feby. 10, 1883. 



