26 WORCESTER COFNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1868. 



that the Trustees be advised to continue that authority to the secretary ; and 

 that the latter officer be instructed to increase the amount of the reward if* 

 upon consultation with the president, it shall seem expedient. 



The old method of publishing the schedule of premiums for the annual 

 autumnal exhibition of the Society, by circular to the members, was continued 

 for the year just elapsed. The opinion of your secretary relative thereto, has 

 been often stated. If it is desired to hold out inducements to become contrib- 

 utors, only to the existing members, that mode may well fulfil the purpose. 

 Should it, however, appear expedient or wise to foster competition, it would 

 perhaps tend materially to that end were you to diffuse the knowledge of your 

 liberality among those who are now kept in ignorance of your proffered wel- 

 come, and have no means of learning the extent or direction of your bounty. 

 This subject is urgently commended to your attention. 



The substitution of silver plate for money upon the premium schedule of the 

 Society, as advised by your secretary in his last annual report, was first at- 

 tempted at the annual autumnal exhibition in September. The satisfaction 

 with which this innovation was received will invite and justify its establishment 

 into a custom. And, in this connection, your secretary would take this oppor- 

 tunity of acknowledging the valuable assistance of Dr. Samuel Flagg, not 

 merely in the ordinary arrangements of the floral department of the exhibition, 

 but in the selection of appropriate and tasteful articles of plate. Of this duty 

 he cheerfully assumed the exclusive charge, and the entire credit for its faith- 

 ful execution belongs to him alone. Some more substantial testimonial would 

 seem to be his due. 



In concluding his report, your secretary may be pardoned for trespassing a 

 moment longer upon your attention. If his labors in the cause of horticulture 

 in the service of this Society, have approved themselves of the slightest worth, 

 it must be attributed to an example that has been before him from his earliest 

 memory. One of his first recollections is of the pride which he felt in being 

 allowed to pick the Antwerp raspberry, then just introduced. He can vividly 

 recall his youthful ambition that, neither in quantity nor neatness should the 

 measure which he gathered derogate from that abundant hospitality which a 

 few of you are old enough to remember. To his mind the vision is still vivid 

 of the ample lawn with its fragrance and beauty of flower and shrub ; of the 

 garden, more especially devoted to the worship of Flora ; of the orchard, in 

 which the apple and pear, the cherry and peach, shamed by their bounteous 

 profusion our modern degeneracy or indolence. A profusion that never failed 

 at homestead or farm ; proving itself equal to the constant supply of a large 

 family as to the frequent exigencies of the entertainment of a trained band or 

 the committees of our parent Society. Those were the days when the Dix and 

 St. Michael were in their glory ; when the Black Tartarian never decayed ; 

 when Cooledge's Favorite and the later Rareripes could be had for the trouble 

 of picking. No borers troubled the Gravenstein ; nature had not been cursed 

 with the Codlinii; moth : even the Curculio icas not. 



