12 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894, 



hours in research through our more recondite pages, knows well 

 where to look, when allowed free access to our choicer treas- 

 ures. The most thriftless tendency of our age is its frenzied 

 inclination to jump at conclusions. To assume that all is desir- 

 able which we have not in immediate possession ; and that our 

 mission must be fruitless unless we hastily acquire, regardless 

 of cost and our financial condition, that which we can as well 

 forego ; and which, at best, is but an inadequate means to an 

 uncertain end. All catalogues, card orother, will be of slight avail 

 to those who are indifterent to the contents which they indicate. 

 There are no royal roads to learning ; and upon its common 

 highways the ordinary indices sufficiently point out the obvious 

 route. There is but one instance on record where the hedge- 

 rows were raked to provide guests at a feast. Was the success 

 then so great as to invite imitation? Our privileges are open to 

 all upon almost nominal terms. That which is proffered gratu- 

 itously, or which can be gained without trouble, is seldom greatly 

 valued. Keeping in touch and sympathy with the times, it may 

 still be worth our while to realize that the millennium is some- 

 what remote. 



In an address before an informal concourse of members, on 

 the 11th of January last, the President of the Society was 

 pleased to say : 



" A Society like this should possess a herbarium. The 

 nucleus of one the Society can have at any time by accepting 

 the offer of a member of the Society and complying with 

 the conditions imposed by him. That gentleman, perhaps 

 the most accomplished botanist in this city, has offered to us 

 his pressed, and mounted, and complete collection of the 

 flora of Worcester County, on condition that the Society 

 provide a suitable, or, in other words, a glass case. If want 

 of room prevents compliance with the condition and conse- 

 quent acceptance of such a munificent offer, then the sooner 

 we pull down and build anew the better." 



Was not the alternative put somewhat strongly? Concede 

 howsoever much value you please to a herbarium, — yet what 

 we have foregone so many years might not be wholly indis- 

 pensable awhile longer. It is not clear from the text who 



