32 Reports of Committee*. 



The entries of Bread was unusually large, and your Committee had no 

 little difficulty in making just and proper selections from the numerous and 

 choice samples offered. Respectfully submitted, 



Edward Manville, ^ 



Mrs. Col. George Church, [- Committee. 



Mrs. F. T. Whiting, ) 



FLOWERS— 21 ENTRIES. 



The Committee on Flowers having- attended to their duty, .respectfully 

 submit the following report. The number of entries in this department 

 this year, was twenty-one, besides one bouquet presented for exhibition only 

 by Mrs. Alexander Hyde. The twenty bouquets of cut flowers enter- 

 ed for a premium were all good, and some of them were excellent. As a 

 whole they were superior to anything ever exhibited at our fairs, and your 

 committee regretted that they did not have $100, instead of $35, to re- 

 ward the exhibitors for the great labor they must have expended in culti- 

 vating the flowers, and the taste displayed in their arrangement. We are 

 aware that the amount of our premiums is no compensation for even the 

 time and trouble spent in the arrangement of the flowers and bringing 

 them for exhibition, but the cempetitors will please take the balance due 

 them in honor, and in the satisfaction they must have themselves felt in 

 their floral labors, and also in the consciousness that they have contributed 

 to the happiness of the multitude who gazed upon their bouquets with so 

 much pleasure. Your committee are aware that some of the competitors 

 have conservatories and other facilities for raising flowers, which others 

 have not, and the question was raised whether a classification should not 

 be made of the bouquets presented, but most of them were composed of 

 a mixture of green-house and hardy flowers, and it was finally decided not 

 to consider anything but the quality and quantity of the flowers, and the 

 taste manifest in their arrangement. 



The questions have been asked, " What have flowers to do with agri- 

 culture, and what propriety is there in an agricultural society offering a 

 premium for their exhibition ? Before naming our award, we desire briefly 

 to answer these questions. In the first place, flowers grow on all our 

 farms whether we cultivate them specially or not. Every plant produces 

 seed " after its kind," and flowers are the necessary precursors of the 

 seed. Some few of the plants, as the ferns, mushroons, etc., are crypto- 

 gamous, that is the stamens and pistils of the flowers are not misille, but 

 still have what answers the purpose of flowers. The trees and the shrubs, 

 the grains and the grasses, the fruits and the vegetables are adorned with 

 flowers with as much uniformity as those plants which we are wont to call 

 flowering. So the farmer cultivates flowers whether he will or not, and 

 the only question is whether he will notice them and take pleasure in them, 

 or pass them by unheeded. Few are so senseless as not to notice the 

 beauty of an apple tree when in full bloom, or the velvety carpet with 

 which the surface of the earth is covered, having green for its foundation 

 color, but variegated with all the hues which flowers are capable of fur- 

 nishing. The great Creator, who is also the great Husbandman, might 



