1885.] TRANSACTIONS. 25 



Your Committee have attended to the duty assigned, and submit 

 the following as their Report : 



The Committee of the Agricultural Society stated that the interest 

 in the show of Fruits and Vegetables had very much declined in 

 their Society since the organization of our Society, and for the purpose 

 of reviving that interest and of rendering their shows more attractive, 

 they invited us to unite our exhibitions with theirs, to hold them at 

 their Hall and under their auspices. 



They manifested their purpose, if we should decline the proposed 

 union, to offer generous premiums for the exhibition of Fruits, 

 Flowers and Vegetables, and intimated their fears that such competi- 

 tion might be injurious to the welfare of our Society. 



We freely and fiankly conceded to them a perfect right to offer any 

 encouragement to increase the interest of their shows which their 

 wisdom might dictate, and at the same time expressed our conviction 

 that no injury would result to our Society from the threatened compe- 

 tition ; but, on the contrary, we were persuaded that it would operate 

 rather as a salutary stimulus to our members to make greater exertions 

 to improve the excellence of our own shows. Why should we fear the 

 competition ? 



The Agricultural Society had the whole field to themselves for 

 twenty or more years before the existence of the Horticultural Society, 

 and what results have they to show for their labors so far as the culti- 

 vation of Fruits and Flowers was concerned ? At the time of the 

 organization of the Horticultural Society, twenty years Mgo, a small 

 supply of tolerably good Winter Apples might be obtained by apply- 

 ing in season to the farmers. Very few appeared in the streets for 

 sale, and the market was as bare of the finer kinds of Summer and 

 Fall Apples as the ground is of snow in June. Not a peck of Pears 

 could be purchased during the whole season which anybody now 

 would think fit for any animal but the pigs, Mazzard Cherries were 

 offered in the market, and the red Canada Plums were tolerably plenty ; 

 but not a cultivated Strawberry, or Raspberry, or Blackberry, or a 

 Grape fit to be eaten could be had for love or money. And as to 

 Peaches, some of us will remember, at the first exhibition of our 

 Society, that some half a dozen plates of the most miserably woolly 

 Frost Peaches were all that Worcester could produce in that line. 

 And, moreover, we were dependent almost entirely upon foreign con- 

 tributors and wild Flowers for a very passable show in our Floral 

 Department. 



What a change you have wrought in the last twenty years, through 

 the efforts of your Society, we need not describe. It is familiar to you 

 all. The superabundance of the most luscious fruits which load our 

 tables and crowd our market, and the profusion of beautiful flowers- 

 which ornament our gardens- and dwellings, all testify to the success 

 which has crowned your labors. You have done a great, a noble 

 work, not only in supplying the wants but in cultivating and greatly 

 improving the taste of the whole community. We have no reason to 

 fear any competition of our respected and venerable neighbor, the 

 Agricultural Society ; we would rather bid them God speed in their 



