32 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



pleasant may be our general intercourse with each other, unless we are ad- 

 vancing the great work we have in hand, we shall surely find the public 

 interest dying out and our usefulness gone. To realize the beneficent purposes 

 of our Society, the popular mind must be first charmed, and thus educated, 

 by our public displays. We shall then more fully harmonize with all those lib- 

 eral institutions which conduce to the happiness and improvement of mankind. 



If there is any hindrance to this work we certainly ought to know it, and, if 

 possible, remove it ; or if any means can be devised to render our exhibitions 

 more attractive and instructive, it is manifestly for our interest to know and 

 adopt them. A knowledge of, and a love for Horticulture ! How beautifully 

 these two agencies operate as cause and effect; for suppress the one and the 

 other suffers ; to increase the one is to promote the other to an indefinite 

 degree. 



Again we ask, have we attained to that which most surely, and to the 

 greatest extent, will secure the object which we have in view ? Let ua see. 

 In the absence, to a great extent, of dissertations, discussions, lectures and 

 other such agencies, we must mainly rely upon our exhibitions as our princi- 

 pal school of instruction, and to be made available they must be made attractive, 

 not only to the young learner, but to the more advanced. Rendering our ex- 

 hibitions attractive is at the same time making them instructive, and to do this 

 two conditions are to be constantly kept in view, viz. : quantity and qualitij; for 

 without a full show we can hardly expect our visitors in large numbers, or 

 without choice and rare productions, and well grown, we may not hope to 

 instruct such as do attend. JHth these conditions we may at the same lime 

 become teachers and learners. Let us see how it has been with us during the 

 past season. Although the weather for a portion of the time was quite un- 

 favorable to the production of flowers in their best estate, yet some of our 

 exhibitions have been of the highest order, embracing specimens showing the 

 exercise of great skill and much labor in their production, specimens seldom 

 equalled or never excelled, and yet we have had but a small attendance of 

 either members and their families, or others. 



During the season which extends from May to September our shows have 

 been of a character which ought to have filled our rooms with lovers of the 

 beautiful in nature, even though many things named in our schedule for 

 special premium were not offered in competition ; and yet on many occasions 

 but few visitors have witnessed the displays. This may in a measure be 

 attributed to our transition state, but having now become fixed in our new and 

 beautiful home, may we not reasonably hope for a better state of things ? 



Allusion has been made to a want of competition for special premiums. 

 May not the laxity of attendance upon our exhibitions be in a measure attrib- 

 utable to that fact.? Are not our shows rendered tame and uninteresting, to 

 some degree, by an apathy on the part of cultivators which has withheld from 

 us, to a great extent, the excitement of competition for special prizes ? We 

 believe so. 



