1885.] TRANSACTIOlsrS. 15 



or unchecked, are they that insure or permit success in the culti- 

 vation of shrubs, plants, or trees ? The Winter of 1884-5, in 

 and about Worcester, was of almost unprecedented severity. 

 And yet the writer, who has official occasion to watch the 

 growth of a very great diversity of vegetation, can recall no 

 season wherein the losses were less or the damage so inappre- 

 ciable. , Neither was there a great fall of snow to protect the 

 ground. What, then, is hardiness? And why? 



The Grape ! does it grow more hardy, with age ? The 

 present season is recorded as below the average, in temperature ; 

 but yet the varieties of that delicious fruit displayed upon our 

 tables throughout the Autumn, A. D. 1885, are rarely surpassed 

 for maturity or flavor. Tiie vines of your Secretary which, as 

 yon were before informed, have been purposely encouraged to 

 straggle at will over the choicest Pear-trees, each and all 

 gratified the palate and appeased the stomach. At this time of 

 writing*, a recent hard frost has left them unharmed. Dela- 

 ware, or Barry, Lindley, or Brighton : more particularly that 

 thick-skinned Diana, put forth their tendrils, cling to whatever 

 they can catch, vibrate with every passing breeze, and furnish — 

 ripe Grapes ! Is not that wliat you want ! If it be urged in 

 objection to such practice, that the vine will, sooner or later, 

 prove fatal to the tree, — the reply is apt and sufficient, that the 

 fittest will survive. Your Secretary may be peculiar in his 

 preference : but he will choose the grape rather than the pear, 

 every time that he must make election. Yet the sacrifice is not 

 imperative with those who possess land enough. They can 

 plant other trees to support the vine — the maple notably, with 

 its wide, spreading top, its sturdy trunk, and its usual healthy 

 habit — perhaps also the Catalpa sjpeciosa^ of wonderfully rapid 

 growth. What is to be secured, is the almost incessant vibra- 

 tion that appears to be essential to the thriftiness of deciduous 

 trees; and which, by its continual motion, compels the vine to 

 reach ont its tendrils, keeps the air in constant circulation, and 

 prevents or postpones that stagnation of the atmosphere which 



* 8th October. 



