62 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894. 



her finest cities. There we found the finest chrysanthemums, and 

 secured some very handsome varieties, some novelties of a new class. 

 I visited some great rice-farms and orangeries, also climbed the great 

 mountains. There are many old temples. A new one, not yet com- 

 pleted, has cost $6,000,000. It is highly enriched with delicate carv- 

 ing, of most artistic design of floral and other character. On one 

 farm are seen eight acres .of LiUum auratum, five acres of Caladium 

 esculentum^ four acres of lotus — thirty varieties — and other crops 

 were growing. I secured some of each of thirty varieties of lotus. 

 Later, I saw six acres of p.-vonies, of all ages ; three acres of young 

 trees — plum, cherry, peach — being grown for shipment ; also mulberry 

 trees by the acre, for silkworm culture, which is a great industry in 

 that section. In the mountain ravines orauges were very abundant. 

 A side trip was taken to Sacco, to visit the finest chrysanthemum 

 show in Japan. The show included thirty different classes, all ranged 

 in booths of bamboo, each class by itself. Specimen plants were 

 grown in many shapes, four or five kinds grown as one plant and 

 trained to make a perfect pyramid of different colors. The varieties 

 and classes were perfectly gorgeous. After a careful examination I 

 decided what I should like to take away and proposed to purchase. 

 But they refused to sell until I convinced them I desired them for pri- 

 vate use, and should take them out of the country. But I could not have 

 any I had seen ; I must select from a field of them just back of the 

 exhibition grounds, to which I was at once taken. There were plants 

 seven to eight feet high, and flowers seven to fourteen inches in diam- 

 eter. Making a careful selection from this stock I found I had 175 

 varieties, which with previous selections made 400 varieties of chrys- 

 anthemums, besides several hundred varieties of other kinds of plants, 

 which were at once taken to Yokohama to be started on their way to 

 Boston. Among the ornamental trees were some that were 50, 100, 

 and even 200 years old. Some of these treasures I brought with me, 

 others I expect will arrive in April. I sailed from Yokohama Nov. 

 29. A pleasant voyage of fifteen days brought us to San Francisco. 

 After seeing my plants on board the train for Boston, I left on the 

 Southern Pacific Railroad for Pasadena, and stopped at the Raymond 

 Hotel, of which Colonel Wentworth — formerly at the White Moun- 

 tains — is proprietor. The extensive grounds and greenhouses are 

 under the superintendeucy of Charles H. Hovey — son of the late C. 

 M. Hovey of Cambridge. The climate is favorable for permanent 

 sub-tropical gardening and the grounds are admirably planned and 

 managed. The greenhouses are in charge of James Barrett, formerly 



