70 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



that healthy and valuable fruit, the strawberry. He has truly said that, though 

 some splendid berries have been exhibited the past year, the show, on the 

 whole, was meagre, and by no means what such an exhibition should be by 

 the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The premiums have been very lib- 

 eral, yet the small association of a neighboring town has far excelled our me- 

 tropolitan display. This should not be ; and we trust the present year, and in 

 future years, our new Hall will be made, during the beautiful month of June, 

 redolent with roses, and fragrant with the odor of huge strawberries, now more 

 to be compared with plums and peaches than with the smaller fruits. 



It is gratifying to see the peach once more upon our tables in greater abun- 

 dance, and I hope the interest now increasing, in regard to orchard houses, 

 will make this luscious fruit more prominent hereafter. The liberal premiums 

 offered for the best peaches and grapes from pot-culture, by VVm. Gray, Jr., 

 Esq., are to be awarded this year, and this alone should bring out many supe- 

 rior specimens. When these are seen, and it is understood how simple is the 

 method of producing them, there will doubtless be hundreds of amateurs and 

 gentlemen who will enter into the culture of the peach, now so uncertain in 

 our variable and often severe climate. 



Of the numerous flowers which have ornamented our tables it would be 

 impossible to particularize in these brief remarks : but I ought to allude to the 

 Gladiolus, as showing how much can be done to render us comparatively inde- 

 pendent of foreign aid in our collections of plants and flowers. It is only 

 within four years that any attention has been given to the raising of seedling 

 Gladioli ; yet the results have surpassed all that we have heretofore had from 

 abroad ; true, the French have given us the material to work with ; and they 

 had the same ; but they have not come up to our standard. All this shows 

 that the same efforts directed to tlie growth of the rose, the pceony, the rhodo- 

 dendron, tiie azalea, the lily, and other plants, will undoubtedly produce like 

 results. With such direct and positive evidence of what has been accom- 

 plished with the Gladiolus, should our cultivators rest contented with the lau- 

 rels already won? The answer may be that the flowers we have named re- 

 quire, some of them, years before their merits can be known, while the Gladi- 

 olus gives a quick result. This, however, should be no bar to the attempt at 

 success. 



Time will not allow me to say all I could wish under this head. The future 

 is enveloped in mystery, but we may indulge the hope, that, encouraged in 

 their efforts, as we are sure all cultivators will be, by the aid of our Society, 

 with the liberal assistance of our zealous amateurs, in bestowing generous 

 premiums for meritorious specimens, our gardens and grounds will be enriched 

 with magnificent objects, the result of intelligence and skill, directed to the 

 improvement of the Creator's works. 



From this slight review of what the season has developed, I turn more im- 

 mediately to the condition and prospects of the Society. 



