REPORT OF BOARD OF TRUSTEES 99 



held to improve the standard or increase the knowledge of horticulture; 

 yet for years the IMassachusetts Horticultural Society has spent large sums 

 of money for such prizes. 



Horticultural exhibitions should not be abandoned; they can be made 

 useful and stimulating, but your Committee believes that the public will be 

 better instructed by a few important exhibitions than by many small ones, 

 especially in a state lilve IMassachusetts where there is not available an 

 unlimited supply of material suitable for exhibition. For Massachusetts, 

 although the business of the florist has been successfulh^ developed here to 

 a higher condition of efficiencj' probably than any other part of the country, 

 is not a great nursery center, and it must be remembered that really suc- 

 cessful horticultural exhibitions depend chiefly on commercial gardeners. 

 It is the Veitches, the Turners, the Waterers, the Pauls, the Vilmorins, 

 the Van Houttes, the Verschaffelts, the Margostans, and the Marliacs, 

 not the owners of private gardens, who have made possible the great flow^er 

 shows of Europe. Recognition in these exhibitions has been the most 

 effective method of advertising that nurser}- gardeners could obtain. It 

 has been a part of their regular business to exhibit, while for the owners 

 of a private garden the exhibition of plants and fruits is often a serious 

 inconvenience and considerable expense. 



It has often been stated that it is impossible to stage an exhibition here 

 without the inducement of money prizes. This is probably true in the 

 case of those members of the Society whose interest in it is in the few dollars 

 they can obtain in the form of prizes rather than in a desire to aid the 

 Society in performing its duty to the community. It should not be for-, 

 gotten, however, that no prizes were offered at the four most successful 

 exhibitions given under the auspices of the Society — the Hunnewell 

 exhibition of Rhododendrons on Boston Common, the exhibition which 

 inaugurated the opening of the present hall, the outdoor exhibition of 

 June, 1917, and the March exhibition of 1918. Their success was due to 

 the public spirit of members of the Society who devoted time, money and 

 effort to the uplifting of the horticulture of the state. We believe that 

 members of the Society can always be found to make possible occasional 

 exhibitions worthy the name of the Society. 



The Society, if it is to accomplish what is expected of it, should not 

 confine its educational efforts to holding exhibitions. It should be in a 

 position to cooperate actively with similar societies throughout the state; 

 it should teach the best rnethods of cultivation by actual demonstration 

 wherever in the state there is a demand for such demonstration. It 

 might well aid its members and the public with advice which would enable 

 them successfully to control the insects and diseases which endanger their 

 crops. It is believed that the production of vegetables and fruits can be 

 greatly increased in the state by the drainage of lands whicli now unim- 

 proved could be made to yield great crops of vegetables for almost an 

 indefinite period. Much land in the state is only partly i)roductive on 

 account of want of moisture and such land can be greatly increased in 



