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up to the usual standard. We particularly missed the great 

 variety usually displayed by Mr. Merrill, who for so many 

 years has been the right hand of the society in this department. 

 As the exhibitors had no standard in common to guide them 

 while selecting their various kinds of vegetables for the An- 

 nual Fair, I hardly feel that the quality of the vegetables was 

 open to criticism. There was a large variety on the tables and 

 some fine specimens of the various standard kinds. 



It would greatly improve our vegetable exhibiters if the 

 same plan was pursued as has been adopted in the fruit depart- 

 ment, that of offering special premiums for each standard veg- 

 etable, the number of specimens required of each kind to be 

 stated, and the standard of excellence to be briefly given. 

 The Massachusetts Horticultural Society has practised this in 

 part for the past few years, with marked improvement in its 

 annual exhibitions. In its printed programme the Society has 

 confined itself to specifying how many in number or how much 

 in measure of each vegetable was required to compete for the 

 premiums offered ; I propobe that our ancient society become 

 a pioneer in a still further improvement, and fix a standard of 

 excellence in the several vegetables so far as the characteris- 

 tics that present themselves to the eye. The experience and 

 good judgment of the vegetable committee of the Massachu- 

 setts Horticultural Society has usually assigned premiums to 

 the most deserving of their kind, yet in their exhibitions anom- 

 alies have been presented that would be impossible under the 

 more matured system that I propose ; such as prominent pre- 

 miums assigned to overgrown potatoes, overgrown squashes, 

 to Hubbard squashes that were but little more than half 

 matured, the color being of a deeper green when in that stage; 

 one year awarding premiums to the largest, coarsest onions — 

 the next, to the ripest. I fully believe that our Society would 

 promote the best interests of the community, and add much 

 to the educating value of its exhibitions, if it would define in 

 general terms what a premium onion, potato, squash, or other 

 vegetable, must be. 



