6 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894. 



we have expounded, so long and wearily, is at last yielding its 

 harvest ! Let us take courage, and resolve that we will continue 

 to merit success by ever striving for improvement ! And let it 

 be our fixed, inflexible policy to impress upon the consciousness 

 of the communit}'', that the aim and object of our Society, — its 

 reason for existence, — is not the distribution of so much money 

 by way of premiums for specimens exhibited ; but rather to 

 ensure that there shall be specimens worthy of exhibition which 

 shall not derogate from the past floral and pomological rank 

 and reputation of Worcester County. 



The names of those who have served this Society, since its 

 earliest organization, in the capacity of Librarian, may be 

 counted on the fingers of one hand. Of them all, to Claren- 

 don Harris belongs the exceeding credit. Of studious tastes, a 

 book-seller of good repute and sound judgment, of closest kin to 

 the Librarian of Harvard University for a generation, no man 

 could have been found so well fitted, by natural inclination or busi- 

 ness training, to see to the proper filling of your empty shelves. 

 For it was his concern, or at least he so construed it (and who 

 shall impugn the correctness of his decision ?) , to provide for the 

 legitimate wants of a Society, founded in a rural County of 

 Massachusetts, for the declared purpose of " Advancing the 

 Science, and encouraging and improving the Practice of Horticul- 

 ture," within a territory of limited area it may be, but yet of such 

 diversified climate and soil as to admit of the cultivation of all 

 the choicer fruits of the temperate zones. When he took charge 

 of your Library, then but a name, Hovey's Magazine was still 

 in its infancy, the Gardener's Chronicle had not yet been pub- 

 lished, nor had Andrew J. Downing embodied his stores of ex- 

 perience and study in that priceless work which has so long 

 directed the steps of the American Pomologist. When he 

 resigned his charge to the inexperienced hands of the present 

 writer, Mr. Harris transferred a choice collection of volumes, 

 mostly bound, that might be said to comprehend a summary of 

 the best approved Horticultural knowledge and practice to that 

 date, of the l^est editions, by authors whose fame acquires new 

 lustre with every passing day. 



