220 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



The thirty-eighth consecutive year of institute work has been 

 completed with 161 institutes held. Poultry raising was the most 

 popular subject; fruit topics stood second; while calls for lectures 

 on vegetable growing, dairying, farm management, marketing, 

 and forage crops, and on economic subjects, were frequent. 



Bounties paid the thirty-four agricultural and horticultural 

 societies applying aggregated $29,480.08. The appropriation of 

 $2,000 for bounties to poultry associations was apportioned among 

 14 of the 17 applying, each association receiving about two-thirds 

 of what it had expended in "State first premiums." 



Boys' and girls' agricultural clubs were conducted under the 

 following titles: — "Home and School Garden Club," "Market- 

 garden Club," "Potato Club," "Pig Club," "Home Economic^ 

 Clab," "Canning and Marketing Club," "Poultry Club," and 

 "Calf Club." At the National Dairy Show held at Springfield in 

 October there was assembled the greatest exhibit ever held of gar- 

 den products, live stock, canned goods, and clothing, wholly the 

 product of boys and girls under nineteen years of age. Judging 

 and athletic contests were also held. 



The public winter meeting of the Board at Horticultural Hall, 

 Boston, in January, brought out a splendid corn and apple show, 

 as well as an exhibit of boys' and girls' club work. There were also 

 exhibits from the Dairy Bureau, the State Ornithologist, and a 

 milk, cream and butter show conducted by the Massachusetts 

 Dairymen's Association. The exhibition as a whole was far and 

 away the best the Board has so far held in connection with its 

 public winter meeting, and interest was evinced by the large 

 attendance all three days of the exhibition. 



A special prize of $25 was offered through the Board by a friend 

 for the best acre of potatoes in the town of Phillipston, and certain 

 other similar prizes were offered in the same way. Some of i:he 

 money offered at the dairy show at Amherst was provided by the 

 Board, and a very good show resulted. The Board, as last year, 

 offered prizes for a beekeeper's exhibit at the Worcester and 

 Greenfield fairs; and under the direction of Dr. B. N. Gates a very 

 attractive exhibit was gotten together. 



The orcharding contest was also conducted as in 1915 by the 

 committee on orcharding and fruit growing, and judged by F. 

 Howard Brown with the following results : — 



