28 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Hall of the Society, this having been rendered necessary by the difficulty, 

 almost the impossibility, of procuring a Hall elsewhere adapted to the pur- 

 pose. The Annual Show was on the whole satisfactory in its character ; it 

 was, it is true, much smaller than on many previous occasions, owing to the 

 fact that the small space in the Hall compelled the exclusion of all articles 

 except such as were shoAvn for the premiums, and prevented all fruit, offered 

 for exhibition only, from being placed on the tables. 



The show of pears was very good, the specimens of some varieties being 

 very superior; that of apples was indifferent, being small in quantity and 

 number of varieties, and the specimens too were not superior in quality ; but 

 of native grapes it was very excellent, embracing good specimens of numer- 

 ous varieties, many of which were new to the Society; indeed the show of 

 native grapes was pronounced by many to have been the best ever made in 

 the rooms of the Society. At the weekly exhibitions early in the season 

 the shows of forced fruits would compare very well with those of previous 

 years ; they were confined mostly to grapes, with some peaches and cherries. 

 There was not, it may be, among the grapes shown, any specimens quite equal 

 to some that have been shown in previous years, yet still there were some 

 that were of very superior quality ; some of the peaches were remarkable 

 for size and beauty, and the cherries, too, were very good. Later in the 

 season, of fruits grown in the open air, the weekly shows were not of an 

 equally satisfactory character ; the number of exhibitors, the quantity of the 

 fruit, and the number of varieties, were smaller than usual, and although 

 among the fruit shown there was much that was fine, yet, too, there was 

 some tliat was very indifferent. Of some species, as the apple and the 

 strawberry, for instance, the exhibitions were very meagre. Of this last 

 fruit premiums were offered for the best specimens of certain named varie- 

 ties, and for several of these premiums there was not a single competitor. 

 This falling off in the weekly exhibitions is not to be accounted for, unless 

 it may be that, in the case of strawberries, a reason for the poor show of that 

 fruit is owing to the fact that the dry weather, through June, so injured the 

 beauty and size of their fruit that growers were unwilling to exhibit what, 

 under ordinary circumstances, would not be a fair sample of their products ; 

 and in the apple, from the failure in the crop. 



As local Horticultural Societies are becoming common, it may be that their 

 exhibitions withdraw and diminish in some degree the interest that heretofore 

 centered in those of this Society. This should hardly be a subject for regret, 

 because as the creation of these local or town societies goes to prove a more 

 general diffusion of horticultural taste and fondness for rural pursuits, one 

 of the objects of the 'formation of this Society, it serves to show that this So- 

 ciety is producing one of the effects of its institution. It would seem, how- 

 ever, that, while maintaining local associations, there should be among the 

 numerous cultivators of this vicinity a spirit of emulation, and an interest 



