6 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1893. 



for which suitable recognition will doubtless be accorded. But 

 there was nothing to spare for the gardens and orchards, whose 

 produce was so conspicuous at Philadelphia, A. D. 1876, and 

 whose apples, at least, have achieved a proud pre-eminence 

 throughout the older States of the Republic. The crude pot- 

 hooks and tortuous scrawls of our school-children are gathered, 

 from far and near, to do service as space-fillers, and money is not 

 lacking to pay the bill. But when we would show the cull and 

 choice of our Holdens, or Hubbardstons; our Mothers, or Sutton 

 Beauties ; the Old Guard of local pomology that never met their 

 Waterloo ! we arc left to defray the cost of Exhibition, beside 

 suffering loss of the specimens, irreclaimable because of their 

 perishable nature. And it is ever thus, in a monotony that 

 becomes wearisome. There seems to be prevalent a congenital 

 incapacity to discern the actual source of the wealth of nations, 

 that might well suggest the need of more skilful treatment for 

 the bhnd as well as for the insane. The mills of men, as of the 

 Gods, may grind slowly, and as fine as you please ; — but what, 

 after all, is the grist ? Can you declare and maintain your inde- 

 pendence of the earth, with its teeming harvests ? The Com- 

 mittee on Ways and Means spend week upon week listening to 

 the comparatively few workers at loom or rolling-mill, who ask 

 that the countless millions may be forced to contribute to the 

 profit of their private business ! Does any one hearken to the 

 cry of the consumer, beseeching only that nature and art may be 

 allowed free course ; and that besides untimely frost or drought ; 

 blight, or fierce hurricane; his meagre returns from exacting toil 

 upon rugged acres shall not be taken from him by unfair dis- 

 crimination ? A tub was thrown to the whale, it is true, ballasted 

 by a25-cent impost on Provincial potatoes, which do not seriously 

 compete with our own product, and for which we do not wish to 

 pay unusual prices when we send to Nova Scotia for new and 

 healthy seed. Barley is also subject to duty, if grown in the 

 Dominion ; but what does that profit those who living in Nega- 

 tion, are not supposed to know the uses of malt ; or to value the 

 original package for the sake of a latent virtue that is outlawed 

 in the extract ! There are Schools of Physics and Metaphysics, 

 until the brain becomes tired in computation of the provision for 



