12 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1885. 



An experimental farm, large enough for the modern Exhibition, 

 and good enough to grow something fit to exhibit ! Just reflect 

 upon what might be achieved, were the Mechanics Association, 

 the Agricultural Society, and our own Horticultural Society, to 

 apply their every energy and resource to the promotion of their 

 declared objects ! Students, from far and near, should throng 

 their courts, hungry and athirst for their multiform instruction ; 

 in some of whom might be awakened that divine spark of genius 

 once latent in a Blanchard, a Howe, or Whitney. What they 

 achieved against obstacles, and in spite of disadvantages, — he- 

 cause it was in them ! would assuredly not be repressed in devel- 

 opment, were circumstances to be rendered more propitious. 

 Does not the prospect allure? Who would have dared to pre- 

 dict, a decade since, that Worcester would so soon become a 

 famous musical centre ? And yet it has been her own sons who 

 have made her such. Is the aim, above indicated, of even half 

 as difiicult attainment ? Let the people of Worcester decide, for, 

 after all, the ultimate determination must rest with them. 



"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon !" 



Are you sceptical upon this point, and does the gospel of 

 Evolution transcend that which was once delivered to the Horti- 

 cultural saints ? There are exhibits to which premiums are 

 awarded, and there are other some that obtain no official recog- 

 nition. There are flowers and fruits that find place in a 

 Schedule, because of a belief (mistake though it may chance), 

 that they ought to be encouraged ; and there are others that 

 were never mentioned, or for divers and sundry reasons have 

 been suffered to lapse. Well, — wherein is the wrong? Or, — 

 who is harmed ? Somebody fails to get a money prize, or 

 possibly the opportunity to compete for one ! Has the milk in 

 the horticultural cocoa-nut no greater percentage of solids than 

 that? Does it not matter, although some seed may have fallen 

 in stony places and other some been choked by thorns, that the 

 harvest has been a fair average, with perhaps a remnant for the 

 gleaners ? What would they have — the children of Unreason 

 and Greed ? A society exists — 



"to advance the Science and encourage and improve the Practice of 

 Horticulture." 



