10 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Something must soon be done to enable our Society to keep 

 pace with the changed conditions that surround us. 



Upon this valuable location, I have said, we have a building 

 ill adapted to our needs. Our Exhibitions cannot be seen to good 

 advantage on account of the necessarily crowded condition of 

 what can be exhibited, in the lines of plants and flowers espe- 

 cially ; and many of the larger plants that should be shown, 

 could they be readily brought into position, note never reach our 

 halls on account of, not only the great difficulty in carrying them 

 into position up two flights of stairs (our elevator service being 

 necessarily cramped), but also of the greater risk and probability 

 of injury from having to carry many of them up in an inclined 

 position. 



Even in the case of the lighter exhibits, which can be easily 

 carried to the tables, those Avho visit the show are too often in- 

 convenienced, as is also the case with the plants and flowers, by 

 the narrowness of the aisles. It is frequently the case that the 

 usefulness of an exhibit is much lessened from the fact that there 

 is insufficient room for the interested group to discuss it. Under 

 such conditions today those visitors who have come to see and 

 learn, but are not expert growers, meet with inconvenience and a 

 degree of discouragement that is undesirable. 



The accommodations for our volunteer Committees, upon whose 

 careful decisions much always depends, could Avell be made 

 better, and enable them to have improved opportunities to dis- 

 cuss the merits of the several exhibits before concluding their 

 awards. Committee rooms are needed, and a room for the Treas- 

 urer and Superintendent of the Building is desirable. In such 

 rooms the Executive, Finance, Library, and Lecture and Publi- 

 cation Committees would find convenient quarters for meetings 

 that would relieve the Library, and be useful as anterooms when 

 our halls were let for evening or other uses. 



Such rooms should be under the control and assignment of the 

 Superintendent of the Building. 



With two flights of stairs for visitors to mount to enjoy more 

 than half of our larger, beautiful Exhibitions, and a third flight 

 to climb in order to secure one of those exquisite bird's-ej^e views, 

 made more beautiful by the electric lights, in the Upper Hall, 

 many would-be visitors are kept from our shows on account of 

 age, or inability to mount our stairs. Our treasury suffers in 



