32 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894. 



fruit has been made to halt behind, with laggard pace. Your 

 Secretary is yearly more confirmed in the opinion that the 

 Society would do more to promote its legitimate aims — advance- 

 ment of the Science and promotion of the Practice of Horticul- 

 ture, by dismissing all thought of what may attract a throng of 

 yawning spectators, and limiting its attention and efforts to 

 its peculiar province of encouraging origination and growth of 

 the best Flowers, Fruits, and Vegetables. A crown of Parsley 

 excited keen rivalry in ancient Greece ; and was the sole, but 

 dearly-priced, reward of the victor in the strife for superiority 

 at the great national games. Yet I anticipate the prompt retort 

 that the Greeks were heathen ! and had not learned to propitiate 

 Mammon when they let out contracts for the erection of altars 

 to unknown Gods ! 



A generation has passed away since the Royal Horticultural 

 Society of England was induced by plausible assertions, to form 

 an alliance with the Crystal Palace Commission whereby it 

 became bound to hold its Exhibitions at Kensington, subjecting 

 itself also to other onerous conditions. From that date com- 

 menced the decline of the Society's prosperity and the almost 

 complete paralysis of its useful functions. Before, it was 

 active, full of healthy vitality, was accumulating a reserve of 

 funds and possessed troops of friends. Thereafter, it hired 

 bands of music, offered superb displays, catered for the London 

 Four Hundred and, having its labor for its pains, surely, if by 

 degrees, sank into a hopeless abyss of insolvency. Within a 

 few years past it has striven to extricate itself from its entangle- 

 ment and only recently was it able to discern the first faint 

 gleam of light. Now, it has put the Tempter behind it, con- 

 fining its efforts to the advancement of Horticulture, pure and 

 simple. It exhibits what it has grown, holding out no mere- 

 tricious allurements. It plays no more upon a harp of a 

 thousand strings, piping unto those who will not dance ! but 

 limits its harmony to the concord which is evoked by common 

 devotion to a consistent, settled purpose. And Fortune is begin- 

 ning to smile u[)on it once more. If you ask me why I allude 

 to this episode in the history of a strange society, in a foreign 



