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WORCESTER COUNTY

HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY,

A. D. 1894-95.

PART I.

CHARLES HAMILTON, PRINTER,
311 MAIN STREET.

1894.

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CONTENTS.

Page,
Report of the Secretary, A. D. 1894 • ... . 5

Report of the Librarian . . , 37

Report of the Treasurer . ....... 41

WORCESTEP. COUNTY

HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY,

A. D. 1894.

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SECRETARY.

To the Members

of the
Worcester County Horticultural Society :

It has been a long time since your Secretary could so cordially
congratulate you upon the manifest, increasing prosperity of
the Society. By this I mean not so much a gain in material
resources, since we have sutlered in common with others
from the late prevalent depression in business activity. But,
under the circumstances, you must realize that any reduction of
indebtedness is a signal gain ; nor can you fail to take note of
that lively interest in our weekly exhibitions which became so
evident during the past official year. Accessions to your Roll
of Membership are counted by the score, comprising all ages
and either sex ; men in the prime of life, who have proved all
things and would fain hold fast that which is good ; and their
juniors, in the first flush of eager expectancy, who have yet to
learn that fruition is the child of many disappointments, and
are too sanguine to have their hearts made sick by hope de-
ferred. Our exhibitions have been well attended ; largely by
those who evinced genuine interest in them, as well for the in-
struction imparted as for their intrinsic attraction. And for
what other purpose do we hold them, at great expenditure of
money, labor, and time ! Let us rejoice that the gospel which

6 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

we have expounded, so long and wearily, is at last yielding its
harvest ! Let us take courage, and resolve that we will continue
to merit success by ever striving for improvement ! And let it
be our fixed, inflexible policy to impress upon the consciousness
of the communit}'', that the aim and object of our Society, — its
reason for existence, — is not the distribution of so much money
by way of premiums for specimens exhibited ; but rather to
ensure that there shall be specimens worthy of exhibition which
shall not derogate from the past floral and pomological rank
and reputation of Worcester County.

The names of those who have served this Society, since its
earliest organization, in the capacity of Librarian, may be
counted on the fingers of one hand. Of them all, to Claren-
don Harris belongs the exceeding credit. Of studious tastes, a
book-seller of good repute and sound judgment, of closest kin to
the Librarian of Harvard University for a generation, no man
could have been found so well fitted, by natural inclination or busi-
ness training, to see to the proper filling of your empty shelves.
For it was his concern, or at least he so construed it (and who
shall impugn the correctness of his decision ?) , to provide for the
legitimate wants of a Society, founded in a rural County of
Massachusetts, for the declared purpose of " Advancing the
Science, and encouraging and improving the Practice of Horticul-
ture," within a territory of limited area it may be, but yet of such
diversified climate and soil as to admit of the cultivation of all
the choicer fruits of the temperate zones. When he took charge
of your Library, then but a name, Hovey's Magazine was still
in its infancy, the Gardener's Chronicle had not yet been pub-
lished, nor had Andrew J. Downing embodied his stores of ex-
perience and study in that priceless work which has so long
directed the steps of the American Pomologist. When he
resigned his charge to the inexperienced hands of the present
writer, Mr. Harris transferred a choice collection of volumes,
mostly bound, that might be said to comprehend a summary of
the best approved Horticultural knowledge and practice to that
date, of the l^est editions, by authors whose fame acquires new
lustre with every passing day.

1894.] TRANSACTIONS. 7

Nor should the felicitous character of his surroundings, in
that connection, be overlooked. That was not an era of clubs ;
people keeping early hours and electing the homestead rather
than herbergage. But such wholesome customs did not pre-
clude good fellowship ; and the day was accounted ill-spent
whereof a half-hour had not been pleasantly occupied in the
book-store, or office subsequently, of Mr. Harris. Of that rare
company, were Frederic William Paine, Anthony Chase, John
Milton Earle, William Lincoln, Isaac Davis, Benjamin F.
Thomas, and, need I add? John Green. All versed in polite
literature, each devoted to Horticulture for its own sake and
not its possible premiums, and every one actively interested for
the welfare of the young Society which they had just united to
establish. To their unselfish liberality may we attribute the early
formation of the Library itself, its nucleus, in default of other
resources, being the volumes given by those gentlemen from
their private collections. Meeting for the daily pinch of snuff,
as was their wont and the custom of their time, they constituted
a sort of volunteer council, prompt to discern needs which they
were equally quick and ready to supply. So that it happened,
without public fuss, or fume of newspaper, that there was a
gradual, steady accretion to the stock of sound knowledge essen-
tial to mastery of Horticulture, so far as declared in print by its
recognized scientists. And it may be asserted, with entire con-
fidence, that, when it was deemed expedient to transfer the
Library to this Hall, in the interest of its more general use, no
collection of its size could be named better suited to its
specific aim and object, than that which Clarendon Harris de-
livered in such admirable condition to your Secretary who,
A. D. 1862, was elected Librarian.

And now, having served in that capacity for a long series
of years, subsequently acting as Chairman of your Commit-
tee on Library and Publication, I take occasion thus publicly
to repel the assumption that there has been any dereliction
of duty on the part of successive Librarians down to the
present day ; or that the Committee on Library has been remiss
in official oversight and action. The files of Journals and Mao--

8 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

azines have been perfected, as published, although some may
seem deficient to those who are not aware that their issue was
suspended because of inadequate patronage due to lack of
remunerative appreciation. Of this, the Floral Magazine and
the Florist and Fomoloc/i'st, are deplorable instances abroad ;
while Hovei/s Magazine and The Gardener s Monthly have left
a void not exactly filled, at home, by any of their more preten-
tious successors. Of State Reports, more precisely designated
as Agricultural, many series were discontinued during and be-
cause of the War of Secession, in several cases never to be
resumed. Some of you may be surprised to learn that even
the imperial State of New York felt so far constrained by neces-
sity as to put a stop to the issue of its excellent Agricultural
Transactions. For many volumes from different States we had
been under obligations to the State Board of Agriculture (Sec-
retary Russell notably), by whom they had been received in
duplicate. For years we had little to proffer in exchange ; and
perforce became deeply indebted for favors that it was impossi-
ble to repay in kind. Latterly, our position, in this respect,
has been greatly improved by the resumption of publication of
our own Transactions, in enlarged form and much enhanced
value.

I assert deliberately, and of personal knowledge, that your
Library now comprises all Horticultural literature extant, of
sterling authority or worth, with a minimum of printed rubbish.
It was never the aim of the Committee to waste your substance,
or to lumber up space by a portentous load of mere black-letter.
If endowed with a " Stickney Fund," it might be practicable,
were it desirable, to accumulate works that are simply curious
because of age or rarity, and rare or old because there was
never enough demand for them to require a new edition. No
one can say that your Committee ever declined to buy a book
that commended itself to their judgment, when its purchase was
once suggested.

In the specification of official short-comings, the incomplete-
ness of(7t»Viy.s Z^o^rt?u'c«? Magazine^ and equally of the Transac-
tions of the Royal Horticultural Society, is particularly noted.

1894.] TRANSACTIONS. 9

But for 3'^ears the Royal Horticultural Society published no
Transactions, being vitally concerned with the more essential
problem of how to maintain its very existence. Virtually bank-
rupt, it had neither pounds, shillings, nor pence, for the printer.
With reference to the Botanical Magazine, it need only be said
that there has never been a day when an order was not in force
in London authorizing a purchase of the only series lacking to
complete our set, whenever it could be obtained at a reasonable
price. Patient waiters are seldom losers ; and who can better
wait than an incorporated Society, which knows not death !
And now, in behalf of the Committee on Library, which is will-
ing to assume all just responsibility for its action, or omission
to act, I desire to state that we plead no inadequacy of means,
having got all that we asked for Library purposes, and having
asked all that we ought in reason, Few works are written
now-a-days that are much more than a re-hash of older treatises.
The tendency of contributions from scientists is toward the
weekly papers like the English (Jhronicle, or Garden, and in
our own county the American Garden or Country Gentleman.
AVhen members have expressed a wish to that efl'ect, any desig-
nated work of manifest value has been speedily obtained. For
more than thirty years scarcely a day has passed in which the
writer was not present at the Library, prepared to listen to any
one that had a suggestion to make which might augment the in-
trinsic worth of our collection of books or tend to facilitate their
circulation. And it must ever be borne in mind that the use of
such Libraries, special as they are, cannot be forced. People
may consult them, to settle doubtful points, or to obtain light
upon matters of practice, where all is dark elsewhere, but they
do not sit down to a perusal of their volumes for mental relax-
ation or delight, as with the pages of history or romance. The
pursuit of artistic or technical learning must be a still-hunt : it
cannot be run down by a pack of hounds in full cry.

The statement has been made broadly, that there are many
works of exceeding interest and worth which could be had for
the bare asking ; w'orks published under the auspices and at the
expense of the Federal Government ; and that upon a request

10 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

to our "Congressman" (? Representative, or Senator), they
would be supplied so quickly as to take away our breath. Pos-
sibly ! Yet your Secretary, who is not easily discouraged,
confesses that his ardor was thoroughly chilled by the indiffer-
ence that met his repeated and earnest appeals in former years,
when acting as Librarian, for copies of the Reports of Explora-
tions in our Western Territories, replete as they were with exact
information, and carefully illustrated in both forui and tint. All
the time, it was notorious that the shelves of second-hand book-
stores in Washington groaned beneath their burden of such
volumes, sold for a song by members of Congress to whom
literature was of value in proportion to what it would bring in
" spot cash" ! In succeeding years these appeals were renewed
with even greater importunity in the Annual Reports of your
Secretary. When respectful requests are suffered to pass un-
heeded, what else would you have? Shall the Society go down
upon its knees in pliant supplication for any bone that might
otherwise be thrown to the congressional dog ! Not so do your
Committee estimate the position and dignity of the Worcester
County Horticultural Society in its peculiar sphere and
province. Nor in any such ignoble way would they suffer it to
demean itself for whatsoever amount of thrift might ensue upon
fawning. Here we stand, as for a half-century past, upon our
own freehold; instinct with quick, fruitful life; bestowing the
results of our experiments and practice freely upon all, without
money or price ; grateful for aid, and welcoming co-operation ;
yet able to maintain ourselves in future as of yore, if needs must
be and the exacting selfishness of politics so wills. Let parties
fuss and fret over " protection," if they choose ; and worry over
the precise percentage that may be required to save the Sugar
Trust from collapse ! Some day it will dawn upon the Yankee
intellect that the fair flowers and wholesome fruits from our
gardens or orchards are as richly entitled to care as the mechan-
ical product of loom or rolling-mill ; and that the modest Florist
or Pomologist, who seeks simple freedom from oppressive dis-
crimination, shall be favored with all the encouragement possi-
bly derived from observation and research of the ablest scientists

1894.] TRANSACTIONS. 11

in the public service. Geological and Botanical Surveys are
ordered of all portions of the Republic ; but their results remain
virtually a sealed book. Commissions are created to find out
why men do not work, when they have declared that they will
not ! Or why other some cannot, who are forcibly prevented !
But disease and disaster may assail the Apple, Grape, or Peach,
threatening the produce of our orchards and farms in myriad
destructive forms, and neither Senator nor Representative move
for investigation, or trouble themselves to promote inquiry by
others. I challenge denial of the assertion that a discovery of
an eftectual safeguard from the yellows in the peach would be
worth more to the American people than all the "Protection"
that has ever lain like an incubus upon industrial energy,
stifling its free aim and action. Insure immunity from that fell
disease, and the pink of the peach blossom shall again tint our
local landscape, as in days of yore when Cooledge and Crawford
budded and bore their luscious harvest. Do Congress, or the
General Court, know or care that within the year just past the
very meanest apples have been quoted at from five to seven
dollars per barrel ? A State Tax to exterminate an insect of ex-
haustless fecundity — an Ocneria dispar which few have seen, and
which is most to be dreaded as an invader of the public treasury !
A Federal million from a Saccharine Senate to stop thistle-down
in its flight ! But what measures of practical utility to save the
product of our orchards from destruction, or to guaranty the
existence of those very orchards against the time when man,
ceasing to be carnivorous, shall find nourishment and long life
in the fruit that, first planted in Eden, was co-eval with his orig-
inal existence.

It would be absurd to argue that a Catalogue of a Special
Library would be superfluous, while it is entirely reasonable to
contend that for the present at least, in our own case, there is
no imperative demand for one. Most of those who use our
volumes are impelled by some instant need for information,
upon a particular fact, or theory, of cultivation. The Librarian
can easily attend to all such wants, quickly placing his hand
upon the requisite treatise. The scholar, who might spend

12 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894,

hours in research through our more recondite pages, knows well
where to look, when allowed free access to our choicer treas-
ures. The most thriftless tendency of our age is its frenzied
inclination to jump at conclusions. To assume that all is desir-
able which we have not in immediate possession ; and that our
mission must be fruitless unless we hastily acquire, regardless
of cost and our financial condition, that which we can as well
forego ; and which, at best, is but an inadequate means to an
uncertain end. All catalogues, card orother, will be of slight avail
to those who are indifterent to the contents which they indicate.
There are no royal roads to learning ; and upon its common
highways the ordinary indices sufficiently point out the obvious
route. There is but one instance on record where the hedge-
rows were raked to provide guests at a feast. Was the success
then so great as to invite imitation? Our privileges are open to
all upon almost nominal terms. That which is proffered gratu-
itously, or which can be gained without trouble, is seldom greatly
valued. Keeping in touch and sympathy with the times, it may
still be worth our while to realize that the millennium is some-
what remote.

In an address before an informal concourse of members, on
the 11th of January last, the President of the Society was
pleased to say :

" A Society like this should possess a herbarium. The
nucleus of one the Society can have at any time by accepting
the offer of a member of the Society and complying with
the conditions imposed by him. That gentleman, perhaps
the most accomplished botanist in this city, has offered to us
his pressed, and mounted, and complete collection of the
flora of Worcester County, on condition that the Society
provide a suitable, or, in other words, a glass case. If want
of room prevents compliance with the condition and conse-
quent acceptance of such a munificent offer, then the sooner
we pull down and build anew the better."

Was not the alternative put somewhat strongly? Concede
howsoever much value you please to a herbarium, — yet what
we have foregone so many years might not be wholly indis-
pensable awhile longer. It is not clear from the text who

1894.] TRANSACTIONS. 13

should be held responsible for that particular laches — the omission
to do somethino; that is thouojht ou^ht to have been done. The
Committee on Finance, to whom 3^ou have confided the custody
and supervision of 3'our Estate, have no cognizance of any such
ofler as stated. Had any definitive proposition to that efiect
been made to them, they would either have taken what steps
were necessary or have submitted the matter to the Society for
its decision. Your Secretary has neither memory, nor record,
of such a proposed gift. It was never his wont to repel
" munificence," for which, in the interest of Horticulture, he
would rather incline to gratitude. Perhaps it may appear
advisable, before we pull down this Hall in order to accom-
modate a gift that is somewhat veiled by the mists of uncer-
tainty, to pay off the debt incurred for its construction. And
even thereafter may obtrude the doubt, alike puzzling and per-
sistent, whether occasion for pyramid and mummy did not,
ages since, pass into "innocuous desuetude"! Of yore the
lover of ilowers pursued his fancy under difiiculties hard for us
to realize. He was remote from all fellowship, unless per-
chance the inmate of a monastery ; and even then unbroken
silence was, in some cases, an inexorable law of existence. His
life was that of a hermit. If he studied after sunset, it was by
the feeble flicker of a rush-light. He enjoyed few facilities for
investigation, and had nowhere to resort for aid. Perforce he
must dry his specimens for subsequent research or reference, if
he would not repeat his wearisome task of hunting through bog
or forest, of patient analysis and lonely discovery, whereof,
if aught happened to him, there was no printing-press to
preserve the narration.

In^this Hall is, or should be evxr, a home for Horticulture in
its most comprehensive meaning, embracing Floral and Pomolo-
gical Science and Practice in their truest acceptation. A practice
and science which, excluding the charlatan, has no tolerance for
the pedant. Too long has Dry-as-Dust ministered as High
Priest at the altars of Flora, only yielding place, under direst
compulsion, if at all, to the imperative behests of an insa-
tiate mammon. The Florist in fact and verity, confesses no

14 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

moribund faith ; owes and pays reverence to no spurious priest-
hood. He relinquishes analysis of pistil and stamen to the
student of abstract learning, whose microscope detects germ or
fungus, if not bacillus or microbe ; because of whose omnipres-
ence and endless fecundity the wonder is that the human race
has so long protracted an unwholesome existence. But,
in doors or out, in ample field or limited garden, he pursues the
bent of his personal taste, thereby escaping the ruts so deadly
to intellectual progress ; seeking ever the new and worthy ;
avoiding always whatsoever is found upon trial, to be of ill
repute, or worthless, when grown. Before him, in all their
vitality, are out-spread root, trunk, branch, leaf, bud, bloom,
or fruit. His concern is with the present, letting Autumn and
Winter alone, like the dead past, to bury their dead. What
need has he, in this age of daily or hourly intercommunication ;
in this age when thought is borne upon wings of lightning, and
perserved upon myriads of printed pages ; in this fair land of
ours where, in little more than a single day, he can pass from
the depressing infl^uence of ice and snow to the bourgeon and
bloom of Magnolia and Rose or, in a few hours more, to the
fragrance and flavor of Orange and Pineapple ; what need has
he, or why should he trouble himself, for the withered leaves and
desiccated stems of a vegetation that, having fulfilled its allotted
mission, died as it ought !

Nor is the science of Botany, so far as in strict justice it can
be termed a science, regarded in the same light as formerly by
its most advanced votaries. Meehaii's Monthly, edited by one
of the foremost Arboriculturists and Florists in this or any
other country, quotes Professor Millspaugh to the subjoined
efl[ect, if not with open approval at least without declared
dissent :

" In the old time, and that not so many years ago, all that was
taught of l)otany, was how to analyse flowers, so as to be able
to understand the descriptions in the text books, and thus
enable one to collect and distinguish species — after which speci-
mens were carefully dried and put away ; and the results of
little more value than the results following a boy's collection of
postage stamps. In modern times the flower-lover is really

1894.] TRANSACTIONS. 15

more of a botanist than the old-time collector of museum
specimens. He looks into the flowers and watches their growth,
endeavors to understand how they are made and studies how
they behave ; and those particular branches of study indicate a
botanist to-day, far more correctl}^ than the mere collector of
plants once did. The geography of plants, or the knowledge
of how they are distributed over the surface of the earth, has
also come to be a very fascinating department of botany, and
the investigation of their ' histories ' in relation to altitude,
climate, and even the relations of plants to insects, have come
to be quite as much matters of botanical interest as the older
studies which relate simply to the classification of plants ! "

In a sketch of the proceedings of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science, at its recent session. Professor
Bay ley Balfour, treating of Forestry,

" Went on to show that the practical aspects of Botany were
not sufficiently considered now-a-days, that whilst chemistry
and physics were turned to utilitarian purposes, botanists con-
fined their attention too exclusively to matters of pure Science.

Botany cannot thrive in a purely introspective atmosphere. It
can only live by keeping in touch with the national life, and
the path by which it may at the present time best do this is
oflered by forestry."

To which, with its usual catholicity of thought and utterance,
the Chronicle^ adds, " If to forestry be added gardening, market-
gardening, and agriculture, including vegetable pathology, we
fully concur with the Professor."

Cannot our Hall be made to serve awhile longer 9

In the early summer a note, whereof a copy is subjoined,
was received by your Secretary :

"Worcester, Mass., May 29, 1894.
'•''Mr. Edward Winslow Lincoln^ Secretary,

Worcester County Horticultural Society ,
" Dear Sir :

" The Committee of Arrangements having in charo;e the
New England Fair of 1894, extend a cordial invitation to the
Worcester County Horticultural Society to unite with them in

^Gardener's Chronicle, London.

16 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

making the Horticultural display at the coming Fair a credit
to this section of the State. Much has been gained in past
years by uniting at Fair time and holding a Joint Exhibition,
and we trust the very pleasant relations of the past may be
continued.

" Trusting the invitation may receive your favorable consid-
eration,

"I remain, very respectfully yours,

"JOHN B. BOWKER, Sec'y."

That invitation was laid before your Committee on Arrange-
ments, etc., and its unanimous decision was officially expressed,
as follows ;

8 : June, A. D. 1894.

Mr. John B. Bowker^

Secretary of Worcester Agricultural Society,

Dear Sir :

At a meetino- of the Committee on Arranoements and Ex-
hibitions, holden on the 7th inst., the Communication from the
Agricultural Society, inviting co-operation at their next Annual
Joint Exhibition with the New England Agricultural Society,
was duly considered and, aa a result, the Secretary was request-
ed to reply that, in the judgment of the Committee, the Science
and Practice of Horticulture will be better encouraged and pro-
moted by the maintenance on the part of the Horticultural
Society of its especial Exhibitions.

With the best wishes for the prosperity of your Society, per-
mit me to subscribe myself

Very respectfully,

EDWARD WINSLOW LINCOLN,

Secretary.

Our own Exhibition was held, in due course, being crowned
with signal success and receiving its due meed of praise from
numerous strangers, well qualified to judge, who chanced to
be in the City. It is understood that the New England Society
also "filled space;" although in what shape Horticulture,
Floriculture, and Vegetables finally crystallized, must be left for
description by the pen of hi-m who parted what God had orig-
inally joined together. In hope, if somewhat faint, of light

1894.] TRANSACTIONS. 17

upon this vexed subject of Terraeculture, and the proper display
of its results, I have now for well-nigh a generation closely
watched the achievements of that astonishing organization which
annually folds its tents and silently steals away, leaving the
sparse after-math to its local partner. But not even the New
England Agricultural Society, with its unique segregation of
Horticulture, Floriculture, and Vegetables, can emerge from its
chronic chaos and, by mere adV^ertisement or clamor, evoke new
form and order in garden or orchard. We show nothing in this
Hall, as all-around, steady going fruits, that will take the place
of Baldwin or Bartlett ! Are they more fortunate over by
Agricultural Street, re-inforced as they are by the surprising
co-operation of our most prominent Members ?

The liberty of an individual to exhibit the product of his
labor, or skill, when, where, and as he pleases, can only be
curtailed by himself. Except by his own volition his action is
free as air. Yet does he not himself impose a degree of
restraint upon that natural freedom by the very fact of his
aflfiliation with a Society ! Is Horticulture exalted, by reason
of Exhibitions elsewhere in Worcester ! Then, by just so much
are our ow^n Exhibitions depreciated. Is Horticulture degraded,
as it careers up and down our streets in electric cars proclaiming,
through ophicleide and trombone, the speedy occurrence of
"Five Great Races!" If aye, — how can we escape responsi-
bility who participate in the downward steps, becoming parcel
and part of the procession that tags after ! Do we leave this
Hall, — going elsewhere in search of reputation and cultural
credit? Where else than here, outside of Suffolk County, could
such solid horticultural renown be attained at any time within
the last Half-Century ! Do we reach out to get individual gain?
It is to l)e hoped that our reward will not become Apples of
Sodom ; although, if purses are to be scaled down, the loss in
such event would not be so hardly borne. Our abstinents and
ascetics are invited to a board wherefrom whatsoever can cheer
the heart of man is sedulously excluded ; and those laborers in
a vineyard without grapes, who are tireless in denunciation
of wine or beer, face with neither flinching nor protest the

18 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

placards that confront them from every fence, whereof the
whole space is let at so much per foot, to advertise — " Game-
Cock ! the King of all Whiskeys !"

The New England, or any other Society that may step into
its shoes, misfits at best, comes to Worcester and squats upon
an excessive tract of land in the very heart of the City, for
which there is legitimate use upon a single week out of the whole
year, and from which neither City, County, nor State collect a
cent of tax. The silent and ostensibly virtuous partner, —
the owner of that land, is a recipient of bounty from the
State, taking Six Hundred Dollars ($600.) from the Public
Treasury for work in part wherein, to say the least, it does not
surpass others less highly favored. Upon that land, bought
with fourpences and for which they have since declined an offer
in "spot cash" of One Hundred and Twenty-Five Thousand
Dollars ($125,000.), they profess to hold for purposes of mere
lucre, exhibitions in rivalry with ourselves who throw wide open
our doors to any who may choose to compete, or inspect. They
claim that bounty from the Commonwealth, to lavish it upon the
acrobat and contortionist, for which nevertheless they pay no
license, as must every other circus ; and for that bounty this So-
ciety pays an equivalent tax of Six Hundred Dollars, exacted
because its first floor is leased, as it needs must be, to get some
revenue wherefrom to defray current expenses. So far as the
State of Massachusetts can accomplish it, there is an actual dis-
crimination in money, against us who charge the community
nothing, in favor of a Society that does nothing but charge ! Not
one of our talents is buried in a napkin or otherwise. And yet,
theoretical protectionists as are most of this audience, I dare to
challenge any one present to dispute my assertion that the
whole effort has been for naught ! To disprove my statement
that, while Apples or Pears may have been shown out of sea-
son, and therefore immature and unworthy of notice by any
Society that has a reputation to guard, the pre-eminence of the
Worcester County Horticultural Society remains unim-
paired,— scarcely even aftected. And still, — of all this audience
who occupy farmstead or grange, is there one who would offer

1894.] TRANSACTIONS. 19

bob-veal for display, — let alone premium ! But what better do
they, whether in the line of example or precept, who submit for
judgment and award on the fourth day of September, Anjou,
Dana's Hovey, Bosc, or Lawrence ! Effort without stint has been
wasted in a rivalry that has once more approved itself futile.
Means that could illy be spared have been literally thrown away
in the purchase of horticultural appliances and furniture that, at
best, would but feebl}' approximate our own thorough and ample
equipment. Tlirown away ! I repeat, since we already occu-
pied the entire field of Horticulture, had made adequate pro-
vision for its ever}' need at Exhibitions, and hold ourselves
ready in all earnestness and with the utmost courtesy, to fulfil
our allotted task. So doing, we leave with those to whom they
appertain the engrossing and responsible duties consequent upon
an honest, whole-souled devotion to specific, time-honored Agri-
culture. There ought never to be rivalry, nor occasion for strife.
The grievous load of indebtedness that weighs upon the Society
by Agricultural Street, had its origin in ambition to do too
much, fostered by the lying promises of men, who, as a class,
are always ready to have others do for them. I know whereof I
speak, having yielded to importunity and signed three (3) suc-
cessive Deeds to land, to remedy incompetent surveys and eke
out inadequate lengths of track, whereon the gelding might dis-
play a speed which he could never transmit ! his owner obtain a
field for training, in clamor for whose purchase he could not be
too vociferous as, in contribution for its payment, then, as since,
he was and continues hopelessly bankrupt !

As for the Society itself which, upon the urgency of D. Waldo
Lincoln and O. B. Hadwen, had agreed to relinquish further at-
tempt at Horticultural Exhibitions, you all know how that engage-
ment is kept. Of itself, among the well-informed, competition
with our Society appears as impolitic as it is, in fiict, preposterous.
If prosecuted from an al)stract love for horticulture, it is labor
lost that were better applied where it might tell to advantage.
If persisted in for the sake of gain, — our own Societ}' was long
since compelled to abandon the custom of filling an ark with
specimens of everything that could not be killed and would not

20 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

die ; that only counted among the accretions of a dump which
no one cared to see, which they certainly would not pay to look
at ; as, for years, they did not for a view of Strawberry, Rose,
or Peach, in perfection. The Worcester County Horticul-
tural Society early learned that people will not pay for admis-
sion to Exhibitions, however excellent, which they can behold
duplicated, if in less degree, at every stall and window of huck-
ster or florist. Will those very people go over to Agricultural
Street and pay thrice as much for a sight of inferior specimens
merged in a hotch-potch classification !

People outside the sanctuary are easily misled. What
more natural than for them to conclude, if our own Members
find this Hall inadequate for the advancement of Horticulture in
its best accepted science and practice, that they also may do
better to stay without its portals ! Why should we not let other
Societies, arrogant and pragmatical, lose themselves in the mists
of pretentious sciolism ; wherein clear judgment is befogged ; or
ffct ensnared in the nets of Mammon, in whose meshes thev will
surely perish ! Sufier those who like to be blinded by a glow-
worm, mistaking its flickering spark for the pure radiance that
enlightens the world ! But, for ourselves, why cannot we be
content with assiduous devotion to that learning and practice
wherein we are sure of the mastery ? To that knowledge which
will add somewhat to the delight of the human palate, and by so
much augment the sum of human enjoyment ! Your Secretary
owns to but slight respect for a theory of existence which rejects
every pleasure that is within reach, and largely because it is
attainable ; austerely declining to enjoy the present life, in a
futile quest for positive assurance of another, wherein the further
one goes the worse he may chance to fare.

We grow Flowers, Fruits, Vegetables : — none better ! Others
produce live-stock, cattle, sheep, turkeys for Thanksgiving ; and
to them we gladly concede superiority in their chosen line.
There is room enough for either without jostling, if only each
will keep to the right. In course of time, the several depart-
ments of Terrtvculture have become too large for a rigid admin-
istration under the lax nomenclature that is fashionable, — and

1894.] TRANSACTIONS. 21

therefore current. We have no longer Cattle-Shows : they have
been transmuted into Agricultural Fairs, — too often Fouls!
That man is accounted behind the times whose memory reverts
with pleasure to the Common and its general enjoyment, where
all were welcome to a public annual Holiday ; — the one with his
quiver full as free from an onerous charge for admission as the
youth at whom Cupid had just aimed. Where the side-shows
tickled the groundlings, fooling even them but once ; where
there need be none of that fretful worry about the weather, since
sunshine and shekels were not equivalent and the Governor
could be counted upon to exhibit himself from interest in the
cause and not for reasons of policy. We have lost our Cattle-
Shows and in lieu thereof have the Half-Mile Track, the Fifty
Thousand Dollar Debt ; the weary despair of extrication from
liabilities that, if achieved, would only furnish a new pretext for
the imposition of additional burdens to stimulate and foster a
practice confessedly hopeless, unless the Statutes can be altered
so as to tolerate gambling. Conceding all that the wildest en-
thusiast may demand to the innate nobility of the Horse ! Yet
it is not as he is described in Job that he is paraded as a specta-
cle at an Agricultural Hippodrome. Who can detect a "neck
clothed in thunder" when the mane is sheared, the hair clipped,
the tail docked, and the feet clamped in boots ! The whole pre-
tence that the modern trials of speed conduce to an improvement
in the breed is dissipated, when you reflect that, oftener than
not, the competitors are geldings, and that invariably every pos-
sible appliance and trick is employed to gain even the slightest
advantage. From all the racing counties of England comes up
the universal wail that production of Horse-FIesh tends to de-
grade and ruin all concerned in it. In this doleful cry farm-
steads and grange concur, as in nothing else, that, since the
latter-day cult of devotion to pedigree, and servitude to unnat-
ural speed, of two animals at either end of the halter one may be
a horse, but the other is invariably and inevitably an ass !

I may be old-fashioned in my notions, but I honestly date the
decline in New England Farming, far more than from any or all
other causes combined, from the surrender of the Ox and the
3

22 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

substitution of the Horse. Note ! that I do not overlook the
prosperity of the Market Gardener, who deserves the good for-
tune for which he labors diligently, but which after all is largely
attributable to the propinquity of his customers. But that is
not farming I Nor do I forget the Dairyman, to whom pasture
and silo are subservient, yielding the year around a copious sup-
ply, which, at current prices, strips alike customer and udder.
But milch-cows do not comprise every "beast of the forest," nor
were they exclusively in the vision of the Psalmist when he be-
held his "cattle upon a thousand hills." It is fancy-stock bred
to a pedigree, salable for an excess that becomes a fault and
not especially prized as material for beef. Intensive agriculture
might redeem the wasted soils of New England far better
than by their abandonment to the invasion of white-weed and
whiter birch. But it must be an agriculture that produces the Ox
and his carcass, that profits by the saving of his manure whereat
it is so fashionable to sneer when so-called fertilizers seek
a handy market ; and which puts that manure where it will do
the most good, — composted about and above the roots of Bald-
win, Hubbardston, and Greening. The fruit that will never
lack purchasers is such as that to which our accomplished judge
awards first premiums. The yield from a whole orchard may
not be the like ; but neither need an orchardist demoralize a
market and ruin his own reputation by attempting to doctor or
deacon by misuse of defective specimens. Superior samples of
first-class Apples or Pears, grown in this County, may as well
be exchanged for the English Shilling as await the slow haggling
of local dealers, who are flustered at sight of a barrel and are
apt to pinch a dime hard when there is a glut of produce.
Grow worthily what you can, converting to cider or pork all
that is fit for nothing else.

Is it our wish, — is it for our interest, — and shall it be our aim, —
to advance that most important branch of Horticulture —Pomol-
ogy? A.D. 1893-4, during the year just passing away, we
have had no apples for domestic consumption. Even our orig-
inal mother Eve would have escaped temptation, had she been
obliged to look upon a peck of defective and half-decayed Rox-

1894.] TRANSACTIONS. 23

bury Russets, as did your Secretary last March, for which the
dealer asked seventy-five cents, with a cheek that looked as if it
never knew a blush ! We have known what it means to endure
an apple-ftimine. A.D. 1894-5, our trees bend beneath their
burden and there threatens to be a glut in our supply. Mean-
while there is a dearth in English orchards, and a large foreign
demand appears eager and quick to take what we can furnish in
abounding excellence. Always assuming that there is no unpar-
donable sin in exchange of produce, or barter if you prefer the
term ; and that there is no lack of patriotism in freighting a ship
with the fruit of our orchards, securing a profitable voyage by
returning with a paying cargo adapted to our needs. To cite a
somewhat famous phrase : " it is a condition, not a theory, that
confronts us." We are likely to be overwhelmed by the super-
fluity of our noblest fruit. Do the frugal orchardists whom I
see around me expect to find ready to hand a home-market insa-
tiate— omnivorous? Can any employer, as he reduces wages
by one stroke of his pen, create a single new stomach or enlarge
the aching void in those existing? If so, well ; — for thereafter
they may perhaps try to supplement the processes of Nature,
aiding her work by augmenting still more that bounty to which
our indolence is indebted in usual happy-go-lucky fashion ! Our
old trees are bearing once again, and there is prospect of a mar-
ket for what they yield. But did we prune, thin out, manure,
do anything in fact, but

" Sittlug on the stile, Mary,"
attune our most lugubrious tones to that most shiftless of all
refrains — " The Lord will provide !" Will He indeed? If you
neglect planting new trees in virgin soil, just wait a few years
and admire His provision ! But watch and take heed what He
will do for you after your old trees are dead from exhaustion,
perishing from that very excess of bounty whereon you lazily
depend ; when your new orchards fail to come into bearing, since
you declined setting them out, in the fancy that apples had
ceased to be factors in human temptation. Or, worse and more
discreditable still, because you would not plant that only poster-
ity might enjoy. And then, degenerate descendants from men

24 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

who tamed the savage Indian and a more savage wilderness ! fold
your arms and look on, as train after train crosses a wide conti-
nent and a stormy ocean to deposit its luscious burden in that
opulent market which we should have long before forestalled !
Ought we to feel assured of a crop in the year to come, resting
idle, toiling not, nor sweating to turn a hair in mid-summer
heats when thinning should not be denied ? Shall we utterly
decline to plant new trees, as did our fathers, upon the produce
of whose tireless industry we are content supinely to vegetate !
Are we satisfied to exhaust our principal, consuming its sub-
stance ?

Commenting upon the actual results from export of almost
every variety of Pears, Plums, Peaches, Grapes, &c., &c., from
California, that grand exponent of all forms of approved Terrse-
culture — the Country Gentleman — declares that " the experiment
is a success ; and has demonstrated that California can furnish
Covent Garden market with fruit just as well as the Isle of
Jersey, and at prices that admit of profitable competition." And
then the Editor, writing with all the shrewd sense, if not with
the actual pen of John J. Thomas, enlarges forcibly upon the
text that I have so often striven to impress upon the Horticultur-
ists of this noble old County of Worcester, whereof the superiors
throughout our broad Eepublic may be counted as the Saints in
Sodom :

" Do the fruit-raisers of the East intend to permit the Pacific
Slope to monopolize this export trade ? If not, it assuredly be-
hooves them to improve enormously the average market value of
their own product, by more vigorously fighting their fungous and
insect foes, more liberal thinning of the crop as it grows, more
unflinching rejection of all imperfect specimens from what are
supposed to be standard-grade lots, and much more careful
handling and packing. We saw last week at Syracuse, California
pears and peaches bringing from seven to nine times as much
money as those raised in the great fruit regions of central and
western New York, not three hours from the retailer's shop;
and, what is worse, the California fruit was worth the difler-
ence. The specimens were of very uniform size, every one per-
fect, and so carefully selected and packed that the dealer said he
never lost a single one by rotting. The New York lot was of

1894.] TRANSACTIONS. 25

all sizes and all degrees of imperfection in form, and disgraced
by a very considerable proportion of rotten specimens. And as
to flavor, the California peaches in their beautiful condition far
excelled the great majority of the others ; and the California
Bartlett pears were in no manner inferior to any Bartlett pears
grown anywhere. Let not the New York orchardist flatter him-
self any longer with the antiquated idea that California fruit is
' good only to look at and to sell.' It is infinitely better to eat
than is an appallingly large proportion of the stufl'thathe insane-
ly sends to market to compete with it."

So much for intrinsic excellence and its marketable appreci-
ation ! That selection counts as well, human if not natural, you
may judge for yourselves when you note this variation in price
of different lots of apples, as quoted September 24th, ult., in the
English prices current :

Baldwin, $2.52, $3.84 :

Greening, $2.64, $3.12 :

King, $3.12, $5.76:

Can we not spare our Kings, if they are so badly wanted and
so highly valued ? A month later, October 23d, when consign-
ments were coming in at the rate of 100,000 barrels weekly,
quotations were as follows :

Baldwin, $2.68 a $3.28 :

Greening, $1 .70 a $2.92 :

Northern Spy, $2.31 a $3.53 :

King, $2.06 a $3.40 :

The prices-current circular adds a pregnant commentary, —
" the demand is active for sound and good quality, but the large
amount of inferior stock injures the market for better goods."
It may not flill within our province, as a Society, to undertake
the regulation of international commerce in apples. But it is
clearly our duty to take note of abuses that threaten to impair,
if not ultimately destroy, a market for our superabundant stores
of fruit which, if thrown back upon our hands for any reason,
would effectually swamp trade at home. Should not our orchard-
ists take some concerted steps to ensure honest packing, which lies
at the foundation of all upright dealing? Your Secretary, agree-
ing with Jefferson that " the world is governed too much," would

26 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

be the last man to invite interposition by the State. Yet, if
self-interest will not dictate and compel an honest count, quite
as essential in commercial Pomology as in current politics, it
may be well worth considering whether public inspection should
not be exacted and enforced, alike in the interest of the Com-
monwealth and its individual citizens, as to conserve the fair re-
pute of the County of Worcester !

A problem that often recurs to your Secretary, as he watches
our Weekly Exhibitions in their unfailing sequence, seems to
him one that deserves your serious consideration. Does speci-
fication constrict the ambition of our members? Do they confine
their eifort within the rigid conditions and limits appointed by
us in our Schedules? We invite competition between certain
classes of Flowers or Fruit, designating by name the varieties
that we wish exhibited. Our members respond ; sometimes
offering twenty or thirty lots of each stereotyped, preferred kind.
What else do they grow ; if aught, so far as the Society is in-
formed ! May we not, unintentionally, discourage the introduc-
tion of novelties of standard excellence, that would challenge
notice and merit study ! Before the formation of this Society,
individuals were thrown upon their own resources, having to
find out as best they might, if Bartlett or Baldwin were worth
cultivation. Vision and judgment were not aided, year after year,
by a proffer of premiums to the amount of Three or Five Dollars
($3.00 or $5.00), for graded dozens. Now, naturally enough,
it is not sur})rising that our judgment should be accepted with-
out dispute — our election admitted without cavil or hesitation.
Indeed, were such not the case, it might well appear that our
Half-Century of corporate existence had been wasted. Unless,
in all these years, we have achieved a solid reputation for know-
ing what is most worthy of being grown in this our County of
Worcester, whether it be of Flower, Fruit, or Vegetable, we
may as well acknowledge that our efforts have been misdirected,
and go out burying our inadequate talents in the first cabbage-
leaf that will serve for their shroud.

But if we have actually established our title as a Society which
has attained its aim in howsoever insufficient measure, thereby

1894.] TRANSACtioisrs. 2t

"advancing the Science and encouraging and improving the
Practice of Horticulture," is it not manifest that the path which
we blaze is likely to be the track of the aspiring novice, — the
preference that we indicate become the choice of all who seek
for a guide and find it in our acts and declarations ! Are they
likely to go astray ! Or will they strike out for themselves in
pursuit of newer Hesperides ; — in less perilous quest of more
modern apples. And therein is the basis for a contention that,
if you place implicit trust in your Judges, you might as well
confide to their decision the entire matter of pecuniary awards.
For their name is legion who believe that our present system is
defective in that its operation is largely contingent upon human
frailty. Is it the intention of the Society when it invites com-
petition, in a certain manner and under explicit conditions, to
bestow marked favor upon those who refrain deliberately from
open competition? Indeed, how can you expect honorable riv-
alry when malingering gets the same reward as faithful service !
Were the judges authorized to confer substantial recognition for
meritorious exhibits, presented without being invited in your
Schedule, it is likely that as exact justice would be meted out
as now. Yet even Angels might well hesitate to act as umpires
in our earthly rivalry ; and, as we cannot command angelic
judgment there is slight hope for amendment in future. But
still is production of Baldwin or Bartlett to be forever classed
with Infant Industries, to be pampered and petted, for all time,
as throughout the Half-Century last past ! The Counlrij Gentle-
man recognizes the difficulty of finding varieties of fruit that will
suit every locality. It reproduces that old chestnut of about all
pomologists of note, since Marshall P. Wilder with his Vicar of
Winkfield, that he would plant 99 out of 100, of his especial pet,
rounding off the century with one more of the same, by attribut-
ino; it to a distino-uished orchardist of Western New York who
thus advised exclusive culture of the Baldwin Apple. Still, to
illustrate *'how much that variety has gone back," it cites the
opinion of a Canadian orchardist who stated, in a public address
before the Fruit-Growers of Ontario, that "the R. I. Greening:
was coming up to the Baldwin and would pass it." But the

28 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

question with us would seem to be, — Have we not already lost
assurance of the Greening in its pristine perfection, and is
there permanent redemption for the Baldwin from manifest
degeneration and intermittent fruition? Yet, hark! was not
that a voice from Mountain Street, intoning in low, harmonious
bass, — eyes have you, oh Secretary 1 and seeing, cannot be-
hold, those Thirty-Four (34) superb dozen of Greenings, on
the 18th of October, ulto. ; or, a week later, that equal, un-
paralleled display of Baldwin ! Precisely ! and because of
those wonderful exceptions to a mediocrity almost invariable do
I urge my contention. Can you tell, oh self-satisfied Granger!
why those Apples were borne, in this especial year, of such sur-
passing excellence and beauty? Did you contribute aught to
it, whether by bounty of manure, by reduction of excessive
fecundity, by doing anything, in short, that may fairly be
claimed to have brought a blush to their cheeks or augmented
their soil and substance ? Can you feel confident that you will
ever look upon their like again, except as I before hinted, under
the fotuous conceit that the Lord will provide! Has He not
just shown you what may be, to profit by the lesson and thus
ensure that it shall be? Would not all buyers like to obtain
such fruit, instead of the inferior or defective specimens usually
found on sale ; or, as throughout the last year, none at all.
Vegetables, within the observation of the writer, have so im-
proved ; skill in their cultivation has so highly developed ; that
it would almost seem as if further advance were beyond attain-
ment. Does any one labor more diligently than the market-
gardener, or show better returns for his toil expended ! Does
any one work less assiduously than the average orchardist, who
resrards suckers as inevitable thieves : who has known the cater-
pillar from boyhood and has come to look upon him as a mem-
ber of his household ; and who will be sure to flatter himself,
}>ecause of what he has seen in this Hall, on the 18th and 25th
of October, ult., that his cellar will be filled to repletion if only
he has a ladder and can get enough barrels. Only, why go to
the troul)lc of climbing a ladder when, to him who waits, will
come windfalls !

1894.] TRANSACTIONS. 29

Are we not, insensibly perhaps but nevertheless surely,
degrading the standard heretofore established in our schedule?
Doubtless the later we live the more opportunity is furnished to
learn. But are all the lessons set before us worth learning? In
our selection of Pears, for example, as the years have rolled by,
we eliminate native and long-tried varieties, or else reduce them
to a lower level than that wherein they had long approved them-
selves worthy. Marshall P. Wilder died in the faith that the
surest prospect for the development of excellence, whether in
the Apple or Pear, would be found in the careful cultivation of
native kinds. Yet we have no room for the Columbia, barely
tolerate the Dix, and regard the Washington as pretty wax-
works ! Now the Dix is as good as Louise Bonne, which it suc-
ceeds, keeps later, and is well worth waiting for if wait you
needs must. People ask for a later-keeping Winter pear and
are put off with suggestion of this or that, hard to grow and
harder to ripen, while all the while the Columbia is at their ser-
vice. Of foreign varieties, Marie Louise, one of the three very
best abroad, gets faint recognition by dint of earnest champion-
ship. Winter Nelis is rated below those egregious humbugs,
Angouleme and Clairgeau, whose girth, or flaming cheeks,
should not suffice to maintain them in cultivation. So much do
I esteem the Nelis, although I fail to earn its premiums ; and so
thoroughly do I believe in each Member of our Society extract-
ing from its original package his Thanksgiving champagne ; that
I recall your attention to the opinion of Andrew J. Downing
who, in his original work, Ed., 1847, says :

"The Winter Nelis holds in our estimation, nearly the same
rank among Winter Pears that the Seckel does among Autumnal
varieties. We consider it unsurpassed in rich, delicious flavor,
and indispensable to every garden however small. It is a very
hardy and thrifty tree, and bears regular crops of Pears, which
always ripen well and in succession."

You may have noted that I mention enjoying it at Thanks-
giving, when most of us must, if at all. Yet John C. Ripley
and John C. Newton, with suitable fruit-rooms, found no difficul-
ty in keeping the Winter Nelis in perfect condition until the

30 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

May following the time of picking. As to the quality of the
pear, Mr. Downing's opinion describes it as truly now as when
it was uttered. That it is an " ugly duckling" may not be dis-
puted. The specimens shown in our Hall of late years have
been very inferior. On the other hand, none could be better
than those exhibited October 25th, by Mrs. Mary E. Woodward.
If the tree that bore them is young, is located in the open, and
has received proper care, as is understood, the lesson is obvious
and requires no commentary.

Describing the Columbia, which originated in Westchester
County, New York, and which he illustrates by a colored
plate, Downing says :

"This splendid American pear is one of the most excellent
qualities, and will, we think, become more generally popular
than any other early Winter fruit. It is large, handsome, very
productive, and has a rich, sugary flavor resembling, but often
surpassing, that of the Beurre Diel."

Times without number have I been asked to recommend some
Winter Pear. The task was too difficult. But why should I
hesitate to recall to your attention the opinion of our very high-
est pomological authority, re-inforced as it has been by the ob-
servant experience of the few of our Members who have profited
by following his judgment ! Bear in mind that it is commended
as a Winter pear ! which implies that it must be suitably kept
and properly ripened. Individually, I went much further and
fared far worse. Instead of Columbia, Duchesse de Bordeaux
cumbers my grounds, — a fruit which I would gladly contribute
to swell that fragrant deposit over which perfumed zephyrs blow
to the delectation of our friends on Shrewsbury Heights. And
finding ourselves in sight of " Shrewsbury Clock," it matters
little by what zephyr borne thither, shall we dismiss mention of
that remarkable display of Lawrence, October 25th, by our
valued associate, Mr. Oliver B. Wyman? Yet, after all, what
did we learn? We saw pears that none of us could rival, nor
even approach in excellence. But who knows under what con-
ditions those specimens were produced ! Was the tree young,
or old ; has it been highly manured, or let severely alone? Was

1894.] TRANSACTIONS. 31

it suft'ered to bear an exhaustive crop, or was excessive fecundity
checked, or reduced ? These are all considerations to be weighed
carefully. Still, that they may be so weighed, they must first
be precisely knovi'n. And how little time do any of us have, in
the hurry and rush of that final Autumnal Exhibition, to put
questions, or to ponder the value of answers ! Yet would not
all who possess trees of that variety prefer to grow pears like
those of Mr. Wyman ! All this possible inquiry, all this posi-
tive dearth of exact intelligence, oppresses the mind of your
Secretary s as he reflects upon the responsibility that rests upon
this Society by the simple fact of the relation it has voluntarily
assumed. Shall we advance the Science, and encourage and im-
prove the Practice of Horticulture ; or shall we continue stolidly
in a customary rut, content to pocket premiums and alert to
grumble at the judges who determine their award !

The profuse award of gratuities, in the Floral Department more
particularly, would seem to challenge your attention and invite
your interposition of a check. It is eminently proper to recog-
nize special displays of surpassing excellence, from places so
far distant as Whitins or Indian Orchard, illustrating as they
do the progress of discovery and the benefit of practical instruc-
tion by object teaching. Yet they are alike inappropriate and
a waste of resources that should be administered frugally,
when they are applied as soothing syrup for defeated competi-
tors, or rubbed in for balm in the case of some who are being
taught to regard Horticultural Exhibitions as a source of material
gain. This, at least, must be conceded, that when the award
of gratuities amounts to $137.00 in a department favored with
an appropriation of $700.00, besides the special assignment of
$200.00 for Chrysanthemum, there is imperative need to call a
halt ! Vegetables, in their manifold forms of utility, and as
long ago as the first Eoman Secession Menenius Agrippa
demonstrated the absolute necessity of provision for the belly,
get but $300.00 from our treasury. In no other department of
our work is there such decided evidence of advance in the
practical application of Horticultural Science. In none do our
appropriations show less evidence of actual appreciation. Even

32 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

fruit has been made to halt behind, with laggard pace. Your
Secretary is yearly more confirmed in the opinion that the
Society would do more to promote its legitimate aims — advance-
ment of the Science and promotion of the Practice of Horticul-
ture, by dismissing all thought of what may attract a throng of
yawning spectators, and limiting its attention and efforts to
its peculiar province of encouraging origination and growth of
the best Flowers, Fruits, and Vegetables. A crown of Parsley
excited keen rivalry in ancient Greece ; and was the sole, but
dearly-priced, reward of the victor in the strife for superiority
at the great national games. Yet I anticipate the prompt retort
that the Greeks were heathen ! and had not learned to propitiate
Mammon when they let out contracts for the erection of altars
to unknown Gods !

A generation has passed away since the Royal Horticultural
Society of England was induced by plausible assertions, to form
an alliance with the Crystal Palace Commission whereby it
became bound to hold its Exhibitions at Kensington, subjecting
itself also to other onerous conditions. From that date com-
menced the decline of the Society's prosperity and the almost
complete paralysis of its useful functions. Before, it was
active, full of healthy vitality, was accumulating a reserve of
funds and possessed troops of friends. Thereafter, it hired
bands of music, offered superb displays, catered for the London
Four Hundred and, having its labor for its pains, surely, if by
degrees, sank into a hopeless abyss of insolvency. Within a
few years past it has striven to extricate itself from its entangle-
ment and only recently was it able to discern the first faint
gleam of light. Now, it has put the Tempter behind it, con-
fining its efforts to the advancement of Horticulture, pure and
simple. It exhibits what it has grown, holding out no mere-
tricious allurements. It plays no more upon a harp of a
thousand strings, piping unto those who will not dance ! but
limits its harmony to the concord which is evoked by common
devotion to a consistent, settled purpose. And Fortune is begin-
ning to smile u[)on it once more. If you ask me why I allude
to this episode in the history of a strange society, in a foreign

1894.] TRANSACTIONS. 33

land, I reply to you Horticulturists of Worcester County ! de
tefahula narratur. Beware lest history repeat itself! You are
treading like paths in your Chrysanthemum Exhibitions, pulling
chestnuts from the fire for others, and burning your own fingers
in futile attempts to rival the ambitious displays by professional
Florists, whose trade it is to cater to each whim of fashionable
society, which dissipates its languid energies at shows of horse
or dog, and spares perchance a moment's thought to the gor-
geous, scentless marvel from far Cathay. As such shows cease to
be even a nine days' wonder, constituting but a passing fashion,
is not our longer participation in them, at a loss which we can
ill atford, the merest folly ! For culture of the Chrysanthemum,
unlike that of the Rose, is not and can never be engrafted upon
the common, everyday horticulture of Worcester County. For
the advancement of such horticulture — the promotion of the
growth by people generally, and not by a special, technical class,
of every desirable flower, fruit, or vegetable, was this Society
originally instituted. Only by keeping that purpose constantly
in mind can the Society be perpetuated with usefulness to the
community and credit to its members.

All which is Respectfully Submitted

[by]

EDWARD WmSLOW LINCOLN,

Secretary.

Horticultural Hall,

Worcester, Massachusetts,

November 7, A. D. 1894.

REPORT OF THE LIBRARIAN.

REPORT OF THE LIBRARIAN.

Worcester, November 1, 1894.
To THE Members of the

Worcester Countt Horticultural Society.

Your Librarian respectfully submits the following report :

The number of Books and Papers taken out during the year
is 376. The number consulted has been large. The past year
the Library has been open every day from 8 A. M. to 6 P. M.,
excepting July and August.

During the year to come the Library will be open every day,
Sundays excepted, from 8 A. M. to 6 P. M.

The following Books, Periodicals, and Papers have been
added the past year : —

Bureau of American Republics :

Special Bulletin for October, 1893. Coffee in South America.

Bulletins for November and December, 1893.

Bulletin for January, 1894.

Bulletin No. 61. Uruguay. Coal and Petroleum in Columbia.

Bureau of Education :

Report of the Commissioner of Education, 1889 and 1890. Vols.
1 and 2.

Report of the Commission on Secondai'y School Studies, appointed
at the meeting of National Educational Association, July 9, 1892.
With reports of the Conferences Dec. 28 and 30, 1892.

Catalogue of the American Library Association. 5000 Vols, for a
popular Library selected by the American Library Association, and
shown at the World's Columbian Exposition, 1893.

History of Education in Delaware.

Spelling Reform — Francis Marsh.

Statistics of Public Libraries in the United States and Canada, 1893.
Weston Flint.
4

38 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

Statistics of Public Libraries in the United States, from the Reports
of the Commissioner of Education, 1884 and 1885, with additions.

Ninth Report of the United States Civil Service Commission, July,
1891, to June, 1892.

Reports from the Consuls of the United States. Nos. 158 to 169,
inclusive.

United States Department of Agriculture :

Report of the Secretary of Agriculture.

Agricultural Library Bulletins Nos. 1, 2, and 3. Accessions to
the Library.

Farmers' Bulletin No. 16. Leguminous plants for green ma-
nuring and for feed.

Circular No. 3. An important enemy to Fruit Trees.

Weather Crop Bulletins. Nos. 1 to 10, inclusive. Co-operating
with Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture.

Report of Connecticut State Board of Agriculture and Experimental
Station, 1893. T. S. Gold, Secretary.

Report of Cornell Agricultural Experimental Station, 1893. Bul-
letins Nos. 58 to 72, inclusive.

Michigan Agricultural Experimental Station Bulletins Nos. 101
to 112, inclusive.

Rhode Island Agricultural Experimental Station. Bulletins Nos.
26, 27, and 28.

Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture :

Report, 1893. W. R. Sessions, Secretary. 20 vols, for distribution.

Report of the State Board of Agriculture on the work of Extermi-
nation of the Gypsy Moth. January, 1894.

Massachusetts Crop Reports. Bulletins Nos. 1 to 6, inclusive.

A Synoptical and Analytical Index of Massachusetts Agricultural
Reports, from 1837 to 1892. F. H. Fowler.

Directory of the Agricultural and Similar Organizations in Massa-
chusetts. February, 1S94.

Bulletin. Special Fertilization. Prof. C. A. Goessman.

Hatch Experimental Station. Bulletins Nos. 24 and 25.

Special Bulletin. Green Manuring.

Third Annual Report of the Trustees of Public Reservations.

Report of School Committee, Sutton. Sarah M. Mills.
Transactions of Worcester North Agricultural Society. 1894.
George Cruickshanks.

1894.] REPORT OF THE LIBRARIAN. 39

Reports of the American Cemetery Superintendents. 1887 to
1891, bound. 1892, 1893, and 1894, unbound. John G. Barker.

Municipal Reports, San Francisco, 1892 and 1893. E. I. Comius.

Report of Dairy Commission, 1890. Henry Phelps.

Department of Agriculture of New South Wales. Nematodes,
mostly Australian and Figian, by N. A. Cobb. Edward Procter.

Agricultural Gazette. Australia. 6 months. Edward Procter.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, as it is 1894. Board of Trade.

Hon. J. H. Walker. Speech. No repeal of the 10 per cent. State
Bank Tax.

Ventilate the Hall of the House of Representatives.

Report of the Parks-Commission, 1893. Edward W. Lincoln.

Address of Mayor Marsh, 1894.

Outlines of Forestry, 1893, by E. J. Houston, A. M. Samuel H.
Putnam.

British Forest Trees by John Nesbet. Samuel H. Putnam.

Errors in School Books. A. A. Pope.

Italian Gardens by Charles A. Piatt. Mrs. P. S. Canfield.

How to know the Wild Flowers by Mrs. William Starr Dana.
Mrs. P. S. Canfield.

Dictionary of Worcester and Vicinity. F. S. Blauchard & Co.

State Board of Health Bulletin, Nashville, Tennessee, 1894.

Boston Journal of Commerce. W. I. Holmes.

Purchased by the Society :

Curtis's Botanical Magazine. Vol. 49. 3d Series.

Journal of Horticulture. English. Vols. 26 and 27. New series.

Asa Gray's Letters. 2 vols.

Revue Horticole, 1893.

According to Seasons. Talk about the Flowers in the order of
their appearance in the woods and fields. Mrs. William Starr Dana.

How to know the Wild Flowers. Mrs. William Starr Dana.

Insects and Insecticides. Clarence M. Weed.

Fungi and Fungicides. Clarence M. Weed.

Trees of Worcester. Miss Arabella H. Tucker.

Insects injurious to Fruits. 2d Edition, 1892. Saunders.

Gray's Lessons and Manual of Botany, 1887.

Silva, or a discourse of Forest Trees and the propagation of timber
in his Majesty's Dominions as it was delivered in the Royal Society
on Oct. 15, 16G2, by John Evelyn, with notes by A. Hunter, M. D.,
1803.

40 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

Sargent's Silva. Vol. 6.

Insectivorous Plants. Darwin.

On the fertilization of Orcliids by Insects. Darwin.

Different forms of Flowers on plants of same species. Darwin.

Cross and Self Fertilization. Darwin.

The movement and habits of climbing plants. Darwin.

Amateur Gardening.

American Florist.

American Agriculturist.

American Gardening.

Country Gentleman.

Garden and Florist.

New England Homestead.

Massachusetts Ploughman.

Meehan's Monthly.

Gardening.

Rural New Yorker.

Vick's Magazine.

Daily Spy.

Agricultural Gazette. Eng.

Garden. Eng.

Gardener's Chronicle. Eng.

Gardening, Illustrated. Eng.

All which is respectfully submitted.

A. A. HIXON, Librarian.

REPORT OF THE TREASURER.

The Treasurer of the Worcester County Horticultural Society
submits his annual report for the year ending November 2,
1894.

While the receipts from the stores are more than last year,
the amount received for rent of Hall has been considerably
less, owing without doubt to the very general depression of
business.

The insurance on the building and contents, having expired
within the past few months, it has been renewed for a larger
sum, for a term of three years, at an expense of $1,269.90. Owing
to this expense, we have been able to reduce the permanent loan
but $500 ; it is hoped, however, that the general business of the
city for the. next year, may be so much improved that the
receipts from rent of the hall may be enough to warrant a large
reduction.

The F. H. Dewey Fund is now one thousand dollars, the in-
come that had accrued having been applied to the purchase of
boolvs and periodicals as was intended by its founder. The
permanent debt, secured by mortgage on the property of the
Society, is $13,900.

42 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894.

The details of the receipts and expenditures have been as
follows : —

Nathaniel Paine, Treasurer^

In account with Worcester County Horticdltdral Society.

Dr.

1893.

Nov. 1.

Balance, as per last report.

% 156.42

1894.

Nov. 2.

Receipts to date :

From rent of stores.

$6,000.00

rent of hall,

2,933.00

membership fees,

115.00

temporary loan,

985.63

chrysanthemum exhibition,

130.00

sale of tickets to reunion,

136.00

Dewey Fund, for purchase of books.

169.45

interest on deposit.
Total,

38.50

110,664.00

Cr.

1894.

Nov. 2.

Payments to date :
By city taxes.

$ 626.24

water bills,

34.27

temporary loan paid,
paid on mortgage loan.

1,000.00
500.00

paid to judges,
insurance premium.

150.00
1,269.90

premiums paid exhibitors,
for coal,

1,741.13

295.28

gas bills.

655.20

interest on mortgage loan,

720.54

on account of repairs,

172.74

books and magazines.

116.35

salaries.

1,549.96

A. A. Hixon, expense at hall, including

janitor,
printing and advertising,
sundries.

745.02

309.64

18.25

on account of Reunion,
Total,

228.74

$10,133.26

1894.

Nov. 2. Balance of cash.

530.74

$10,664.00

1894.] REPORT OF THE TREASURER. 43

THE F. H. DEWEY FUND.

1894, Nov. 2. The balance of this fund, after transferring the in-
terest received to the general account, for the purchase of books and
periodicals, is $1,000, and it is on deposit in a Savings Bank.

Respectfully submitted,

NATHL. PAINE, Treasurer.

Worcester, Nov. 5, 1894.

The undersigned hereby certify that they have examined the
account of the Treasurer, and find the same to be correct and properly
vouched, and the cash balance is accounted for.

HENRY L. PARKER, (

Auditors.

F. H. CHAMBERLAIN

N.i

TRANSACTIONS

WORCESTER COUNTY

HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY,

A. D. 1894-95.

PART II.

CHARLES HAMILTON, PRINTER,
311 MAIN STREET.

1895.

CONTENTS.

Page.
Address by President Henry L. Parker 5

Essay by O. B. Hadweu 12

Essay by Herbert R. Kinney 23

Essay by Mrs. A. E. Henderson 40

Discussion by Practical Cultivators 54

Essay by Miss Arabella H. Tucker 64

Essay by Joseph Jackson 74

Essay by Burton W. Potter , , 91

Essay by C. F. Hodge 102

Essay by E. Harlow Hussell 118

WORCi:STER COUNTI

HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.

loth January, A. D. 1895.
ADDRESS*

* . BY

Hon. henry L. PARKER, President.

Before proceeding to the topic which I have chosen for dis-
cussion, I desire to congratulate the Society upon the successful
work of the past year. While it is true that financially the
Society has not escaped the effects of the general business de-
pression, yet in exhibitions, in the interest and enthusiasm of
its members and the influence of its work upon the general
public, as manifested by the largely increased attendance upon
its weekly displays, there has been a marked advance over all
previous years. Especially noticeable were the displays of the
foliage of rare shrubs, shade and ornamental trees, and wild
flowers in their season.

This is a new feature in our exhibitions, but that it has already
won the popular favor is manifest from the attention and study
which these collections attracted from visitors. It is a feature
which should receive encouragement, for it is in line with what
President Hall (in his speech at our recent banquet) claims
should be one of the missions of this society, viz. : To cultivate
and bring back a renewal of that love of nature which is inher-
ent in every human breast, but which the congestion of our cities
and large centres of population, the associations and ways of
metropolitan life, have a tendency to eflace.

*\Vritteu out from recollection bv request of the Comiuittee on Publicatiou.

6 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

Our Society may also feel proud of the fact that one of our
members, Prof. Joseph Jackson, has published during the past
season a book which will be appreciated by all lovers of nature,
''Through Glade and Mead." While its style reminds one of
Burroughs and Thoreau, and every page breathes an invitation
to the woods and fields, it contains, also information of great
value. Its classification of the flora of Worcester County, the
most exhaustive which has ever yet been made, should give it a
place in the library of every student of botanical science.

But my purpose to-day was to speak upon the subject of
" Fruit Growing in the Annapolis Valley" ; and by the Annapo-
lis Valley I mean, of course, the region known by that name in
the Province of Nova Scotia.

More by accident than by design, I spent a few days in this
region last summer. In the Annapolis Valley lies the scene of
Longfellow's " Story of Evangeline or the land of Acadia." But
the whole Province was anciently known as Acadia, and in the old
geographies of the French it is described as a barren, inhospit-
able, almost uninhabitable region, extremely cold, and fettered
for a good portion of the year with ice and snow. But either the
old geogra-phers made an egregious mistake, or the temperature
has become most wonderfully modified since those old days :
for although the latitude is that of Northern New Hampshire
and Vermont, all the fruits which flourish with us (except,
perhaps, the grape, which can only be grown in favored lo-
calities), ripen there in abundance and perfection; all our
varieties of pears, peaches, plums, as well as all the small-fruits,
— strawberries, raspberries, currants, gooseberries. I said to
them, " How can you do it? How can you raise all these fruits
with your low temperature and fog?" But they said, " We
have no low temperature. It never reaches zero more than once
or twice during the cold season and never goes more than seven
below, and we have no fog. You see those mountains?" (A
range of mountains extending along the coast for twenty miles
to the northwest and called theColbequid or North Mountains).
"Those protect us from the northwest gales and the sea-fog.
You see some mornings the fog rising over the tops of the

181)5.] ADDRESS. 7

mountains and curling over a little and then receding. It never
comes down into the valley." And the words of Longfellow in
" Evangeline " came at once to mind,

" Aloft on the mountains sea-fogs pitched their tents
And mists from the mighty Atlantic lool^ed on the happy valley,
But ne'er from that station descended."

And it was indeed a happy valley — the people thrifty, in-
telligent and contented, as we might expect when we reflect that
the larger portion of them are of New England stock ; for after
the expulsion of the French Acadians, the country was settled
by colonists from Massachusetts and Connecticut. And the
soil possesses a fertility surpassed by few other spots on the
continent. There are several square miles of dyke, land, re-
claimed from the sea, with a soil from six to eight feet in depth
of a rich loam. This dyke land has produced for generations,
and without the application of any fertilizing material whatever,
from one and a half to two tons of hay to the acre. The loam
itself is used as a fertilizer. It is carted to the upland during
the winter months, and as a mulch for trees is preferred by many
to the best barnyard compost. The staple crops are hay, oats
and potatoes. Three hundred bushels of potatoes to the acre
and fifty bushels of oats to the acre are not uncommon.

Fruit growing, however, is the principal industry. Easp-
berries are produced at the rate of five thousand quarts to the
acre.

Plums grow there in perfection. I noticed there nearly all
the varieties grown with us, — the Lombard, the Washington, the
Bradshaw, the Gages, — and every tree loaded to its utmost
bearing capacity.

Fruit growing is not only the principal industry but every-
thing else is subordinate to it. It is the principal topic of dis-
cussion. The very air seems filled with an atHatus from the
orchards. The greatest interest centres, of course, in apple cul-
ture ; as the apple, from its forejgn market, is the source of the
greatest revenue. And if in the culture of the apple the orch-
ardists of the valley have achieved success, it is because they
have earned and deserved it ; because they have pursued it with

8 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

an energy and persistence which has amounted to enthusiasm.
The land is first highly fertilized for the orchard and the trees
well planted. After planting and while growing, the trees are
constantly kept mulched and the soil stirred up. Crops of
buckwheat and other cereals are sown and then ploughed under
as fertilizers. The trees are kept pruned as they grow, and as
they come into bearing condition they are looked after with un-
remitting attention. In the early spring the trunks are washed
with soaps, those of the older trees being scraped.

The foliage is sprayed with kerosene emulsions and Paris
green. Search is made for borers ; and with the first blossoming
the pruner begins his work. The fruit is thinned as soon as
set ; and from the first putting out of the foliage until the fruit
matures, the orchard is visited with spade and pruning saw.'

The result of this care was seen in fair, perfect fruit, and a
bright, healthy foliage.

The apple growers of the valley claim, that for fine flavor
and in keeping qualities, their apples beat the world. The first
claim I think is not sustained by fjicts.

A collection of choice samples was sent to the Massachusetts
Society a few years ago from the Association ; and that Society
reported, that while conceding them a first place in keeping
qualities, yet in flavor they were second to Massachusetts apples.
But it is certain that no apples sell better in the London market
than the Province apples. They command a higher price than
apples from the States.

But few varieties are in general cultivation. Those found the
most profitable for cultivation are the Gravenstein, Ril)ston (an
English apple). King of Tompkins Co., Blenheim, Golden Rus-
set, Fallawater and Nonpareil. The Gravenstein is the general
favorite. Ask any apple grower to name five or more best
varieties for general cultivation, and his list will always begin
with the Gravenstein. The Nonpareil is a long keeper. It has
been shipped to London in the last of May in perfect condition
and sold there for over two pounds per barrel ; the same apples
have been taken to Paris and retailed at ten cents an apple.
The Nonpareil is a small, compact apple, and allowing say six
hundred apples to the barrel, it yields you $60.

1895.] ADDRESS. 9

Other varieties cultivated are the Bahlwin, — which is getting
out of favor, because some years it does not color up, — the
Rhode Island Greening, the Alexander and the Yellow Bell-
flower, which is better known there under the synonym of the
Bishop's Pippin.

It is without doubt largely due to the skill with which the
Province apples are packed, that they command such prices in
the foreign market. Great attention has been paid to packing
and transportation.

The Province of Nova Scotia some twenty-five years ago,
boasted of a flourishing Agricultural Society. Sometime in the
early seventies a Fruit Growers Association was organized,
having its headquarters in VVolfville, in the Annapolis Valley.
This Association has usurped the place of the Agricultural
Society, and the latter has become, in the valley at least, practi-
cally defunct. The Fruit Growers Association is the live
Society, and it has accomplished a great work, not only in
exciting an interest in fruit culture, but by means of discussions,
lectures, and papers, in teaching the best methods of culture.
An outgrowth of the Fruit Growers Association is a Horticul-
tural School. An endowment or appropriation has been made
for the purpose by the Dominion Government. A large tract
of land has been leased for a term of thirty years for experi-
mental purposes. A corps of professors and instructors have
been engaged, and during the coming year a building is to be
erected.

The moral of what I have been saying is, that granted a good
soil, and proper care and attention, good apples can be grown;
and the application of this moral we can take home to ourselves.

Worcester County lies in that portion of Eastern Massachusetts
noted for the fine flavor and qualities of its fruits ; and especially
in the flavor of the apple, to no other section of the country or
the world does Eastern Massachusetts yield the palm. No
other section of the world of the same size has originated more
apples in general favor for cultivation than Worcester County.
And if our farmers and orchardists woukl devote to apple cul-
ture the same energy and attention they give to market garden-

10 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

ing and the culture of small-fruits, Worcester County could
beat the world in this industry.

We do raise fine apples. No finer apples were ever seen
anywhere in size, in color, in flavor, and in all those points
approaching perfection, than were exhibited in our Hall during
the past Autumn ; but for every plate thus exhibited how many
plates there were remaining of imperfect, worm-eaten and
worthless fruit, is a question of serious consequence, to be
answered only by conjecture. If I were to hazard a guess, the
rates would be not less than three to one. Good judges have
placed it as high as eighty per cent.

The trouble is, that our farmers and orchardists do not make
apple culture a serious business. Instead of making of it a real
business, they make it subordinate and auxiliary to something
else, and very much auxiliary at that. And if they persist in
going forward in this indifferent fashion, in planting their trees
carelessly and caring for them still more carelessly, leaving them
to fare as best they may in soil poorly prepared and poorly
fertilized, unpruned, untouched by wash or spray, a prey to
the borer, the codlin moth, the canker worm and caterpillar,
and when the fruit is gathered, fill the barrel with good, bad
and indifferent all together, and in this condition palm them of
upon an unsuspecting public, what right have they then to
complain that there is no money in apples? "Do men gather
grapes of thorns or figs from thistles ? "

Ex-President Hadwen has well said, that in the line of fruits,
" the apple is the richest gift the Almighty has vouchsafed to
man." It is in more universal use than any other fruit. It can
be used in its natural state during a longer period of the year
than any other. Its medicinal and sanitary qualities are unsur-
passed. And the demand for good apples is constantly on the
increase. The foreign market is year by year asking for a
greater supply. One grower in Middlesex County has shipped
to England the past season, from his own orchard, over two
thousand l)arrels. But for poor, imperfect, indifferent fruit
there is no demand, and no market at home or abroad, and never
will be.

1895.] ADDRESS. 11

In this connection, it is interesting to note that certain gentle-
men from different parts of the State, specially interested in
fruit culture, have in contemplation a Convention in our Hall
sometime during the present winter, to consider the organization
of a Fruit Growers Association. As Horticulturists, we ought
to welcome the advent of such an Association, for it would be
in a line with the aim and purpose of our own Society. If
organized, it will not be the first kindred society that has seen
its birth in this Hall, nor is its mission likely to be the least in
usefulness. While such an organization and our own would
both feel that they were travelling the same road, yet each
would have its own special work, — the one esthetic, the other
practical ; the one dealing with the question of economics, the
other occupying broader ground and ever keeping in view the
advancement of horticultural science in all its branches : but
each would inevitably help and stimulate the other. The
stimulus to apple culture of such a movement cannot 1)e over-
estimated. We bid it " God-speed."

I7th January, A. D. 1895.

ESSAY

BY

O. B. HADWEN, Worcester, Mass.
Theme : — A Century of Pomology.

I AM asked to give some recollections of the pomology in New Eng-
land for the past century. It may not be becoming for one who has
lived but three-score years and ten, to attempt an elaborate history,
or to delineate the vast progress that has taken place duriog this
period of time.

The early settlers inherited and brought with them the innate fond-
ness of, and the necessity and value, that the garden and orchard
contributed to their sustenance and good living; as early as 1621
Edward Winslow speaks of native grapes, strawberries, gooseberries,
and plums ; records of tree planting come down to us, for, in the
year 1648, Peregrine White, the first man born of English parentage
in New England, planted the first apple tree, which outlived several
generations of men, and is described as a giant of its kind.

The pear tree imported from England by Governor Prince, and
planted by him at his homestead about 1640, was described in 1836
as a flourishing tree, when two hundred years old, and tlien bearing
fifteen bushels of fruit a year.

Another pear tree, still standing in Yarmouth, was planted in 1640.
Besides these trees, many others planted by the first settlers before
1700, are yet standing, and a still greater number since the com-
mencement of the present century ; and while the trees are represented
as strong and vigorous growers, the fruit was but of inferior quality,
as judged by the present standard.

Many trees of the Hightop Sweeting, still growing in Marshfield,
Mass., are reputed to have been planted more than two hundred
years ago.

1895.] . ESSAYS. 13

The first apple having originated in New England, that has proved
a great favorite, and been widely disseminated over the whole coun-
try, is the Rhode Island Greening, having its origin on the island of
Rhode Island, in the town of Portsmouth. The original tree stood
near an ancient tavern known, in 1765, as " Green's Inn," and for
many years it received the appellation of " Green's Inn Apple," it
becoming a favorite with the travelling public that stopped at the inn,
and was early disseminated over the State and country.

Among other seedling varieties were the Foxwell, Pignose, Bach-
elor Button, and Pearmains, which, having lived their allotted time,
have passed away to make room for the newer and approved sorts
now so generally grown.

In the earlier times, the land being new and rich in all the elements
requisite for tree growth, the accumulation of ages, trees did not
require or receive the care in their cultivation necessary at the present
time,

John Josselyu, who styled himself a gentleman, made several visits
from England to this country, in 1G63, describes fruits growing in
New England of the apple, pear, cherry, quince, plum, and barberry
trees, and has observed that trees raised from the seed or stone pro-
duce fair and good fruit, without grafting, and the country is replen-
ished with fair and large orchards ; he also speaks of one Mr. Wool-
cot, a magistrate in Connecticut Colony, who affirmed that he made
five hundred hogsheads of cider out of his own orchard in one year ;
he did not state whether said Woolcot was drunk or sober, or if it
was much of a year for cider, either. George Feuwick and John
Mason, of Saybrook, Conn., as early as 1641, are reported as grow-
ing the apple, cherry, and peach. The fruit of an apple tree which
was given to the Apostle Eliot, with an acre of land, by the Indians,
was exhibited at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1833,
called the Orange Sweet. Another apple tree imported from
England, and planted in the garden of the Wyllis family in Hartford,
before 1650, produced fruit in 1822. These interesting relics tencl to
prove the apple to be long-lived when grown from the seed, as was
the custom in the earlier times.

Among the pears of ancient origin, and are interesting relics, are
the Orange Pear, planted about 1640; the Iron or Black Pear, said to
be more than two centuries old ; the Pinneo Pear, of Connecticut, said
to be one hundred and sixty years old. An Orange Pear tree,
described by Chief Justice Paul Dudley, in 1726, that measured forty
feet in height, and six feet six inches in girth a yard from the

14 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

ground, and has borne thirty bushels in a season, some specimens
measuring eleven inches around the bulge ; he also describes a
Worden Pear tree measuring five feet six inches around ; and one of
bis neighbors has a Bergamot Pear tree, brought from Englaud in a
box in the year 1643, that measures six feet ai'ound, and has borne
twenty-two bushels of fine pears in one season. The pears grown in
the latter part of the last century, and known as St. Michel, St.
Germain, Brown Beurre, Virgoleuse, were undoubtedly introduced by
the Huguenots, about the year 1685 ; and it is from these that our
earlier native pears have sprung. Cherries and peaches also received
some attention early in the seventeenth century. Some cherry trees,
planted in 1650, at Bristol, R. I., lived two centuries.

Peaches are mentioned by William Penu. Writing the 16th of the
eighth month, he mentions very good peaches, and not an Indian
plantation was without them. Peaches were grown from the stone in.
1790, by John Kenrick of Newton, Mass., who planted a quantity
of peach stones ; the process of budding was not then understood or
practiced, and trees were grown in their natural state ; with this
practice, peach trees were long-lived and attained great size, bearing
abundant crops in a few years. Subsequently inoculating or budding
was practiced, and about the year 1818 the dreaded disease known as
" Peach Yellows " was first noticed in the State of New Jersey ; a
few years later, large quantities of ciioice varieties of peach trees
were brought into New England from New Jersey, and with them the
"Yellows" was introduced, and has since remained, and probably
will continue so long as budded trees are used, or trees grown from
stones procured from diseased trees.

The attempt to prolong the existence of choice varieties of peaches,
which is done by budding, has, without doubt, had a tendency to
lessen the natural stamina of the peach to that extent that they are
unable to withstand the extremes of temperature in this climate, as
they formerly did when grown naturally. It is also well known that
the "Yellows" does not manifest itself in trees grown under glass,
or in the southern portions of the country; hence, we may conclude
the peach in its weakened condition cannot resist the disease in our
climate. Therefore, the "Yellows" has been the main cause of
seriously diminishing our peach growing, almost to the extent of pro-
hibition. It would also seem the only course to pursue to regain our
former success, is to root out all the old trees and plant anew with
stones procured from sections of the country where the " Yellows" is
unknown.

1895.] ESSAYS. 15

Thus, it will be observed that our starting-point in pomology is
directly traced to the early settlers, who brought with them the love
of fruit growing, and, although for nearly two centuries progress
and advancement of pomology was comparatively slow, it was no
less firmly rooted, and its rapid and continuous advancement spread
over the whole country ; the practice, the science, the art of pomol-
ogy, had barely dawned in the beginning of the present century,
and orchards were quite in contrast with the intelligent and judicious
care they receive at the present day ; the career of the pomologist was
yet in its earliest stages, but his eye has been turned upward and
onward — his labor unremitting.

No man in the beginning of the nineteenth century seemed, or even
regarded himself, a true American of the higher type, who did not
plant fruit trees, and, although it was after the war of the Revolution
and after the war of 1812 before fine orchards and gardens became
numerous, small-fruits began to receive cultivation in the gardens of
the wealthy, and wild berries only were sold in the markets ; we had
just commenced to develop the resources of our great country, which
embraces every clime and every variety of soil adapted to the cultiva-
tion of fruits, both indigenous and exotic.

Even this brief sketch of pomology in New England would be in-
complete without some mention of the Societies, both Agricultural
and Horticultural, together with the papers and periodicals treating
of agriculture, stimulating the introduction of fruits, and treating of
the better modes of cultivation ; one of the earliest works published
in New England, its title " Essays upon Field Husbandry," by Rev.
Jared Elliot, of Killingworth, Conn., begun in 1747, but barely
alluding to fruit culture. But Elliot introduced into Connecticut the
White Mulberry, and wrote a treatise on the mulberry tree and silk-
worms.

"The New England Farmer," by Dr. Samuel Deane, was published
in 1790. "The American Gardener" was published in Washington,
D. C, in 1804. " The American Practical Gardener" was published
in Baltimore, in 1819. A "Treatise on the Cultivation of Flowers," by
Roland Green, was published in Boston, in 1828 ; and numerous other
papers have aided and encouraged pomology.

The first efforts for promoting agriculture by societies was the
formation of the "Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture,"
in 1785; and "The Agricultural Society of South Carolina" was
incorporated in 1795. The "Massachusetts Society for Promoting
Agriculture "was incorporated in 1792. It was the pioneer of agricul-

16 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

tural societies in New England, and was very active in encouraging
all interests pertaining to fruit growing in New England. "The
Agricultural Repository " was published by this society, being the first
of its kind in the State ; a writer furnished a list of twelve peaches,
six cherries, seven apples, and fifteen pears, being considered the
most esteemed grown in the State at that time.

The " Roxbury Russet" was included in the list of apples. It
probably had its origin in Roxbury, Mass. Soon after the settlement
of the country the first settlers of Stonington, Conn., went from Rox-
bury in 1649, and tradition states, took this apple with them at a very
early date. It is undoubtedly the oldest of the native sorts and has
been widely disseminated over the northern portion of the country.

The " Baldwin," at that time, was but little known. The original
tree stood in the town of Wilmington, Mass., and first fruited about
the middle of the last century. It is now probably more extensively
grown than any other apple in the New England States, and as a com-
mercial apple for export outranks all other sorts.

We have, as briefly as possible, alluded to the cultivation of fruits
as existing in New England previous to the war of 1812. After the
termination of the war, fruit growing seemed to receive a boom.
From England, France, and other European countries the best varie-
ties were sought out and brought into New England ; and with the
ardor that new things receive here, orchards and gardens were planted
with the best fruit then known, but much inferior to the choicer pro-
ductions of our time, many being "to the manner born." I remem-
ber when the choicest apples found in our markets could be counted
by less than a dozen sorts, and pears and peaches equally limited ;
when strawberries were gathered from the meadows and pastures. I
have gathered bushels and sold them at fourpence-halfpenny per
quart. 1 cannot learn that previous to 1824 strawberries were culti-
vated in gai-dens, but a little later were occasionally found in the
markets.

I planted my first strawberry bed in the spring of 1836, — two sorts,
the Alpine and Early Virginia. I believe the following year added
the Metheun Castle, then a new English sort. In 18;58 the Hovey
Seedling was first shown at the Massachusetts Society, and in the
words of the Committee, "promised well." I purchased two plants
in 1840, at twenty-five cents each, and made money with my invest-
ment. Very soon after, numerous varieties seemed to spring up all
over the country, and the cultivation of the strawberry was fairly
established as a market industry. Hundreds of esteemed varieties

1895.] ESSAYS. 17

have been brought out, have lived their allotted time and passed away
to make room for others still to come. From a limited garden indus-
try, the cultivation of the strawberry has increased to thousands of
acres, and the season of fruit from Florida to the Provinces is con-
tinued fully three mouths. It would seem, from observing the newer
sorts from year to year, that the limit of perfection has been already
reached, many of the new seedlings being inferior to some that have
passed away ; but a new seedling that promises well always enlists the
warmest attention of growers, and it is soon put upon its merits ; and
when soil and cultivation are favorable very many have proved decided
acquisitions. The Hovey, Wilson, Boston Pine, Scott's Seedling,
La Coustante, Brighton Pine, Jenny Lind, Triomphe de Gaud, and
four hundred others, have been esteemed varieties, but now are
unknown, except by name.

The raspberry, following the strawberry, adds a favorite fruit for
home use and the market. The best sorts are of foreign origin, or
seedlings from them ; they are proving even more desirable for culti-
vation. They are long-lived and seem almost perpetual. The older
sorts remain as good as ever, and are only replaced by newer kinds
tluit promise better in flavor, productiveness, hardiness and size of
berry. They are not as extensively cultivated as the strawberry, but
early in the century only wild raspberries were in use, indigenous and
growing all over New England. The older sorts were the Antwerp,
Herstine, Hornet, Northumberland, Kneivett's Giant, together with the
Black Caps, which form a succession of berries until the blackberries
are in season.

Blackberries, in early times, were growing wild, more especially on
newly cleared land, and when once rooted were continued in pastures
and on the roadsides. The wild sorts were both high bush and trail-
ing ; the trailing were the earlier and larger fruit. They were so
abundant in earlier times that they were not much cultivated until
williin forty years. .Since that period the cultivation of the blackberry
has, and is now, largely increased. Many new seedlings have been
brought out and widely disseminated, proving great acquisitions aud
well worthy of cultivation, affordiug a continuous season of small
fruits until the grape becomes ripe.

The grapes found growing wild by the Puritans were quite distinct
from European sorts. Within the last fifty years increased attention
has been given to them in New England, and many hybrid varieties
have been introduced through cross-fertilization. These are proving
a wonderful success. It requires an early grape to succeed in New

18 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

England, and cultivators esteem eavliness as one of the requisite
features to ensure annual and well-ripened crops ; and, while the vine-
yards are not a leading feature, a large area is devoted to its culture.

The pear, although found in very limited number early in the cen-
tury, made but slow advances. The Seckel pear, according to Down-
ing, was known in 1765. It was introduced to cultivation before
1817. The original tree, in 1848, was very large for a Seckel, being
more than six feet in circumference at one foot from the ground. I
saw the tree about the year 1863 ; it then showed evident signs of
decay. It was the first native pear that attracted much attention and
for many years was regarded as the standard of excellence.

Probably the first attempt in this country to produce a new fruit by
cross-fertilization was by William Prince, who raised Prince's St.
Germain, about 1806. Thus it would seem the pear, until within fifty
years, received but little attention outside of gardens, and even then
but few and inferior sorts. The first impetus given to its cultivation
was about 1835, and the better sorts of foreign origin were introduced
about this time. There was increasing interest manifest and many
good kinds were imported. Horticultural societies, with their exhibi-
tions and liberal offers of premiums, with the fondness of Americans
for new and rare things, soon brought from abroad hundreds of
varieties.

The sessions of the American Pomological Society brought together
large collections at their exhibitions in Boston in 1873. Messrs.
Elwanger & Barry contributed three hundred and seventeen finely
grown varieties of pears. Marshall P. Wilder, the President of the
Society, contributed four hundred and four varieties, comprising all
the foreign and native varieties. Hovey & Co., of Boston, con-
tributed three hundred and twenty-eight varieties, and F. & L. Clapp
had eighty-six varieties of pears grown from seed. There were more
than six thousand dishes of fruit, from all parts of the country, in-
cluding Canada and Nova Scotia.

At this exhibition it would ai)pear as if tlie pear cultivation had
arrived at its height. Only nurserymen and those of great wealth and
enthusiasm could attempt such displays. Soon after it, was discov-
ered that fewer kinds, comprising the choicer sorts, were more to.be
desired, and the weeding out process was in order. The great mass of
poor and ordinary kinds were thrown out and their cultivation dis-
continued.

We have now arrived at a more healthy condition in pear culture.
But few varieties are grown, and those that are found especially

1895.] ESSAYS. 19

adapted to the soil and climate of the grower; and, as a rule, they are
not, when grown for market, found as remunerative as the apple, but
afford an agreeable family and dessert fruit, well suited to a refined
taste, and in season eight months in the year.

In the main, however, I believe the experience of the last forty
years of pear cultivation in New England will not warrant large
orchard industry, with the sole view of profit ; the greater portion of
our people are unaccustomed to use pears as freely as they use other
fruits, and the supply is often found greater than the demand ; its ten-
dency often to rapid decay, is also against it.

By far the most important phase of pomology is the apple, and,
without any hesitation, I will affirm the best fruit God has given to
man.

Fortunately, New England lies within the great apple-growing belt,
ranging from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains, and it is still more
fortunate in the exquisite flavor of New England apples. I have
never seen them equalled, and I believe I have travelled over this
country from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf, to and from the Atlantic
to the Pacific.

The soil and climate of New England is even more favorable to the
production of the apple than of the pear, plum or peach.

During the past sixty years the apple has been more largely planted
in orchards than all other fruits combined, and the supply for home
jise and export, from year to year, is enormous.

There have originated in New England many apples of the most
approved varieties ; they are largely grown here, and have dissemin-
ated over the whole country, Downing's Fruit Books recording over
three thousand kinds of apples, fifty-five of which have their origin in
Connecticut, more than eighty in Massachusetts, fifteen of these in
Worcester County, and undoubtedly many more that have not found
their place in printed works.

The other New England States have also contributed a large num-
ber that take a first rank throughout the country.

At the Hxhibition of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in
1829, apples were barely mentioned ; and at the first Exhibition of the
Worcester County Horticultural Society in 1840, but few apples were
designated by name.

Since tliat period the apple has made most remarkable advance, its
cultivation being stimulated by Agricultural and Horticultural Socie-
ties and State Boards of Agriculture in all the New England States.

Previous to the formation of these societies there were but few

20 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

orchards that were managed with much skill, and very many received
but haphazard treatment.

As time went on, knowledge and science slowly crept in; every
season brought out more improved cultivation and better products,
and in a few years horticulture and pomology were recognized as the
fine and higher arts in rural life and rural aptitude.

Equal progress has been made in inculcating an educated taste for
choice fruits and creating a demand which encourages the cultivator
to supply fruits which fill the markets with tempting displays from all
parts of the country.

The thousands of acres of orchards and gardens which may now
be seen in New England manifest the strangest contrast with that in
former years, and for many years New England was in advance of
other portions of the country in horticultui'e.

The natural conditions which govern our soil and climate require
more skill and brain in its manipulation to ensure success. Special
manures and fertilizers are found to be a necessity ; the art of graft-
ing and budding, with other approved modes of propagating, have to
be acquired and made use of ; judicious jjruning is one of important
practice in the orchard ; and thinning the fruit, to promote size and
good flavor, is equally necessary.

It would seem, if we may judge from the new fruits of the last
fifty years, there is no barrier to obtaining by hybridization fruits of
any desired size, quality or color, if the proper knowledge is used with
a requisite amount of skill and patience, to produce almost any desired
size or quality, together with fine aroma and brilliant coloring.

Science has revealed these possibilities, which only await the skilled
cultivator to demonstrate in all the lines of fruit growing.

New England is also favored with a variety of soils which is found
favorable to the growth of the apple. Experience also teaches that
one kind of soil is not adapted to the growth of all kinds of apples ;
some thrive best in a loamy soil, some in sandy, others in a gravelly
or clay ; keeping those things in view, it is plain that several varieties
of apples, when planted in a single orchard, are more reliable for a
crop, as seasons come and go, than one variety.

Sometimes climatic conditions prove injurious to one or more varie-
ties, when otliers in the orchard are uninjured.

In the earlier times, and even now, there were and are, many
theories not well founded, relating to orcharding ; of late years grow-
ers are changing tlieir views, and the majority of orchardists endeavor
to understand the reason of their practice ; under these conditions

1895.] ESSAYS. 21

the march of progress has been rapid, and success is in proper ratio
to the care the orchard receives.

I have, for some years, given more especial attention to the grow-
ing of apples than to other fruits.

In the autumn of 1843 I planted the apple-seeds from which the
trees in my orchard of twenty acres are planted, budded the trees, and
planted them, and have watched their progress of growth and bearing
ever since. The trees are now at maturity and bear full crops, and
I have received a vast amount of pleasure and a reasonable amount
of profit from my husbandry.

When we look back upon the past century and notice the vast
changes in pomological pursuits that have taken place ; the rapid pro-
gress made in all its phases ; the general diffusion of knowledge of
fruit growing ; the vast increase of gardens, vineyards and orchards
within every State and Territory, from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
unequalled in extent of acres, of capital invested, in any country in
the world ; the great variety in all classes grown ; the general and rapid
dissemination of valuable fruits, either old or new; and in looking at
past and present progress, and draw upon the imagination to estimate
future advancements, now that the principles that bring out, by cross-
impregnation, new sorts so rapidly, and will continue in all time, — we
feel we cannot correctly estimate the future ; we know not where our
successors will stand, or the perfection their knowledge, their culture
in fruits will attain a hundred years hence. But if we may judge by
the past, we can feel encouraged that the science of pomology will be
upward and onward ; new discoveries are sure to be made, new prin-
ciples of cultivation will be brought out, and we cannot even conceive
to what perfection in pomology our successors will achieve and
develop.

But marvellous as the progress of the next century may be ; how-
ever great may be the advancement ; how much it may add to the
beauty and charm of rural life, and men will repose amid the bloom
and fruitage of the orchard and vineyard, — we may at least congratu-
late those- of the present century who by their labors and zeal have
contributed to this heritage, and given the advantage of the clear and
steady light which will illume the future toward pomological per-
fection.

It has been my privilege to have personally known, and to have

been associated with, some of the noted men who have been leaders of

pomological interests for nearly a half-century ; some of them have

been instrumental in raising from seed, and introducing some of the

3

22 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

prominent fruits now known and cultivated ; among these notable men
are the Downings, Wilder, Warder, Barry, Downer, Bull, French,
Hovey, Clapp, Manning, Moore, Kenrick, Prince, Buck, Hunnewell,
Parkman, Sargent, Strong, Smith, Berckmans, Hyde and Gold, with
many others who have and will leave enduring monuments of their
good and noble work, which will continue from generation to gener-
ation.

I have alluded but briefly to the progress of Pomology in the past
and present century, — to elaborate would extend this paper far
beyond reasonable limit of time, and tax your patience in undue pro-
portion to the information imparted.

Much as has been accomplished in Pomological industries, still
greater achievements and accomplishments await those who may follow.

The yearly fruitage awaits generations of men for all time, and
will ever be in just and due proportion with the intelligent labor
bestowed.

24th January, A. D. 1895.

ESSAY

BY

HERBERT R. KINNEY, Worcester, Mass.

Theme : — Vegetable Gardening.

It being but two years since I bad the pleasure of reading a paper
before this Society on this subject, and at that time we looked at it
in a general way, it may be as well to-day to consider some varieties
of vegetables individually, and incidentally speak about some of the
many things that are always coming up which make gardening one of
the uncertain, if not the most uncertain, branches of agriculture.

During the past two years, which have been years of business de-
pression throughout the country and which we have felt to a certain
extent, we have also had two exceptionally dry summers ; but for
all that, as we look about us, we can see others that are getting
along no better, in the many branches of industry that go to make up
our generally very busy city and county. And while we, as gardeners,
horticulturists and farmers, could wish for better business, we must
remember that we should only expect a reasonable share of the good
things that labor can provide, and our business gives many that some
others are denied. We will not try to consider this matter now, but
turn to the literal meaning of our subject.

I shall not try to follow any particular line in this paper, but take
up some of the more common vegetables in a more or less general
manner, and leave many loose ends for discussion later should you
wish to spend more time on this subject.

In vegetable gardening, fertilization is one of the first subjects to
be considered, and on very light or very heavy land it is desirable for
us to have considerable vegetable matter. This vegetable matter or
humus is quite necessary in most soils, and the easiest way those liv-
ing near the city can get it when they wish to get a large part of
their land under cultivation, is from stable manure : but where one has

24 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

land enough so that it is not necessary for him to have more than
from one-third to one-half of his land under cultivation, there is then
no trouble keeping his soil well supplied with vegetable matter with-
out drawing heavily of manure ; in which case it becomes desirable to
ascertain the relative value of agricultural chemicals, mixed fertil-
izers and stable manure to see which will produce, not always the
lai'gest crop, but rather the one that is the most satisfactory, every-
thing considered.

Quality, I am sorry to say, does not count for as much in our mar-
ket as it should, not that we do not now have to grow as good vege-
tables as people wish to pay for, but most people buy by the eye, and
many things that look very good are not of the best quality, and
people after buying a poor thing a few times will decide that they
don't care for it, and stop buying, which is not what we want. It is
better to have a good sale at a reasonable profit, and that is a small
one at this time, than to have a limited sale at a much larger profit.

Another thing that should be considered by the gardeners is some
way to have the vegetables reach the consumer in better shape than
they do at the present time. This is a point that we as vegetable
growers are not apt to give as much time and attention as the matter
deserves.

"We are very liable to consider that when they are sold to the dealer
and we have received our pay for them, that it makes no difference to
us whether the dealer is able to sell them or the consumer able to eat
them ; but here we are making a mistake ; we should not only try and
put them up in such a manner that there should be the least possible
loss to the dealer, but so that they should be in the best possible condi-
tion when they reach the consumer.

I will not at this time even suggest a remedy for the present care-
less handling of vegetables, but any of you who chance to be about
a market, especially during warm weather, can see that there is
need of better handling ; and there is not a doubt but what it would
be as much of a benefit to the growers as to any one.

When we come to look at this subject in the line of individual vege-
tables, varieties, methods of growing and handling, etc., it is rather
difficult to decide just where to begin, and I shall not try to treat the
subject, but just take up some of the standard varieties.

Of the whole list of vegetables there is not, perhaps, one of more
importance to the gardener than lettuce. You may think differently,
many of you, as there are many who only think of lettuce as a salad
a few weeks during early summer ; but when you consider that at the

1895.] ESSAYS. 25

present time lettuce is a standaid vegetable all the year, and the large
amount of capital that is invested in sash and houses largely for the
growing of lettuce, you can see that it is a very important crop for the
gardener. It is important on another account, as it is a crop that he
can grow during the winter ; and that is quite desirable for those who
do not keep cattle, at any rate.

It seems to be the general impression at the present time that
greenhouses are preferable to sash for the growing of lettuce during
the winter ; but as I have had no experience with them can not judge,
but would say that we have had no trouble in growing very satisfac-
tory lettuce under sash during the last three winters. It has always
seemed to me as though there was more trouble in raising good plants
than in growing the lettuce.

In running sash during cold weather we find it desirable to put in
a few sash of heat at a time, and arrange so as to be able to put in a
few sash in a bed as often as possible, as we cannot hold much heat
during the short days in winter long enough to grow a good crop ;
but a few sash of fresh heat put in from time to time seems to help
quite a long run ; and while it is more trouble, you might say, perhaps,
that trouble is what we are looking for when we try to raise lettuce
during the winter ; because it is not how many sash can a man look
after, but how can he make a day's pay ; and I would rather spend a
day's time on two sash than four, providing we can get the same
returns.

Our market is not a good one for winter lettuce ; but if the time
comes when we can raise good lettuce so that it can be sold for from
5 to 8 cents per head, during the winter, there is but little doubt
but what the demand will increase. While the price is very high at
present, there is no reason to expect another such a time for a
number of years, during which time there will probably be consider-
able lettuce raised at a loss.

Fungus has begun to make its appearance in some places in such a
manner as to cause uneasiness, and if the gardeners were to have
their own way about it, we should know but little about its habits
until it got so destructive as to threaten the industry, as they, the
gardeners, are as a rule, non-believers in fungi ; hut I am thankful
to be able to say that there are students studying these small plants,
and "we may hope, at least, that they will discover some method of
holding them in check.

Lettuce delights in a rich, mellow soil worked deep, and does not
need much water either in sash or outdoors when the weather is cool,

26 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, [1895.

but as it becomes warmer it will use considerable. The only variety
that is wanted in the market here, is the white seed tennis ball, or
one of the strains of big Boston, during the winter.

When it comes to summer or outdoor lettuce there is probably
nothing that gives as good satisfaction as the black seed tennis ball.

During the summer lettuce grows quite readily, but owing to its
keeping so poorly, both in the field and in the market, it is not used
very extensively ; and then we have many summer vegetables that do
not last long that call for our attention.

Cucumbers are another of the gardeners' standard early crops.
They are mostly grown in beds and houses, when the weather becomes
so warm the glass is no longer needed for growing lettuce, and as
they require more heat than most vegetables, are a desirable crop to
have under glass during hot weather. They will generally do fairly
well in a lettuce-house in early spring, but it is generally considered
that it is about as profitable, with sash particularly, not to start them
until the weather gets warm. While the later ones do not sell so high
there is generally a better crop.

When not troubled with disease they will continue to bear nice
cucumbers a long time, but of late there has been much complaint,
both here and in the eastern part of the State. There seems to be
only one variety that is desirable to raise for market under glass
here, and that is the white spine, some strains of which are very
fine. They are also the standard variety for planting out in the
field where slicers are wanted, but are not good for pickles, as they
do not set so much fruit as some of the smaller varieties and are not
so good shaped when small. The standard variety for pickles for
this market is the Boston pickling, where the demand is mostly for
small and medium pickles. Pickles do best if planted after the 20th
of June, and are usually early enough if planted the first week in July.

Cabbage is another of our vegetables that we have most of the
year, and that are in the market all the time. Early cabbage can
well be called a garden vegetable, but the later ones are more of a
farm crop. It is very probable that there are more cabbage raised
and sold than of any other vegetable, potatoes excepted, and in many
places they are considered a very profitable crop.

Early cabbage has always seemed to me to be, as one of our largest
gardeners once told me they were with him, "The most uncertain
crop I grow." When they do well they are a very nice crop to
handle, as they are easy to keep free from weeds and leave the
ground in fine condition for a late crop.

1895.] ESSAYS. 27

To get good early cabbage, it is very essential to Lave good plants,
as their principal enemy is the maggot in the root, and strong plants
will often get through when weak ones are destroyed. Club-foot is
the disease that gives the growers of late cabbage much trouble,
especially if they are on low ground.

The standard early varieties here are the Early Jersey Wakefield
and Henderson's Early Summer. The Winningstadt is becoming a
popular cabbage for summer and autumn, and while it may be a
desirable cabbage for the dealer, I hardly think it profitable for the
grower, as it is quite small. It has until quite recently sold for
considerable more than the drumheads, and it ought to, but of late
some of our large cabbage growers have been growing it quite exten-
sively, and if it can be grown nearly as cheap as the drumheads, it
will probably be the standard summer and fall cabbage. The Stone
Mason is a standard winter cabbage and much better for this market
than a larger variety. The best strains are round enough so they
trim well during the winter. It is a good keeper.

Early cabbage thrive best in rich and not too moist old garden soil,
that has not had any of the cabbage family grown on it for at least
three years, while late ones enjoy nothing better than a good
sward ; but they are rank feeders and need heavy manuring. Cabbage
grown on, or partially with, fertilizers and chemicals, will keep better
than if grown exclusively on stable manure, and they will keep better
if grown on sward than if grown on old land.

Cauliflowers are treated very much the same as cabbage and usually
sell for more by the head, but the demand for them is very light in
this market. They are one of the many vegetables that are not
appreciated here.

Perhaps after cabbage there is no vegetable so important with the
gardener as the beet. This is also a vegetable that we have practi-
cally the year around, although there are so many shipped here from
the South during the early spring, that there is not so much demand
for old beets late in the season as formerly. Some gardeners have
done considerable of a business with transplanted beets, especially
in southern New England ; and while it does very well if they can be
brought into market a few days earlier than those sown in the open
field, it is usually hard to get them early enough so that they will
clean up before there are a plenty from the open ground, when they
will not begin to bring what they cost, and do not sell as well as
those grown from seed sown in the open field. Beets will sometimes
come nicely if sown when the ground is quite wet and cold, but are

28 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

generally more satisfactory if not planted until the ground is pretty
well dried off.

It is quite important that beets that are intended for extra early
should be well thinned, after which they need but little attention.
The standard early beet for this section is the Egyptian, and it is a
good beet early in the season, but soon becomes hard and of poor
quality.

For a general purpose beet, there is probably none better than the
Edmands ; but that has most too heavy a top and is too much of a
beet to be sold for the price they were last summer. They come at a
time when the gardeners are not heavily loaded, and are a good
vegetable, and perhaps we should consider that we are doing some-
thing for the poor. We certainly cannot be doing much for ourselves
when we sell good bunch beets for from 20 to 25 cents per dozen.
The best winter beets are grown when the seed is planted quite
late. From the middle of June to the middle of July should grow
them of good quality, and they keep better to be stored before very
hard freezing.

The Egg Plant is a vegetable that, while there is very little demand
for them in our market, are worthy of abetter standing, as they make
a very nice dish when well served, and are quite easily grown, but the
people here have not got used to them yet. They are started and
grown about the same as tomatoes.

There is hardly a vegetable that is more universally grown by both
large and small gardeners than the tomato, and while the season of
the fresh fruit is not a long one, it is very extensively used during its
season. One of the reasons for its general use is that it is easily
grown and usually gives a good crop. They are one of the vegetables
that will grow on most any soil and are not generally subject to
disease, although there are one or two diseases that are occasionally
(juite destructive to them. For a very early crop they may be set on
dry land that is not rich and set quite close (2x3 ft.), but where tlie
land is in good heart and moist, four or five feet apart each way will
be close enough. Thei'e are three types of tomatoes extensively
advertised, but only one in general cultivation here. They are
represented by the Atlantic Prize for extra early. Acme and Perfec-
tion for general crop, and Ponderosa — very large. There are a
good many varieties of each of those types, especially the Acme
and Perfection, and there may be some improvements on them
which were some of the first of this class.
Of all the late crops in the vegetable garden celery is king, and since

1895.] ESSAYS. 29

the general introduction of the self-blanching varieties, so-called, its
season has been very much lengthened, as they can be had in good
condition by the middle of August and are on the market much earlier ;
but celery does not come to its best quality until the weather becomes
cool, and seldom is in prime rhuch before Thanksgiving. The height
of the season is from that time until after the first of January, when
it begins to drop out of general use, and while the price generally ad-
vances there is apt to be much more waste.

Celery is generally considered a second crop, but ou moist land,
where it is difficult to put in a crop early in spring, it is becoming
quite common to set Paris Golden or White Plume in rows from five
to seven feet apart in June, and later set in Giant Pascal or Boston
Market between. During the months of September and October the
early is to be blanched with boards and taken out, and then the late
celery banked ; in theory this is one of the best methods of grow-
ing celery on moist ground, but I can say from experience and ob-
servation that it does not always work as well as we might wish.
Celery is a very rank grower in cool weather if it has plenty of
moisture, but does not do well generally on dryland unless artificially
watered. It does best on land that has been in cultivation a number
of years and that has been worked deep, and it seems to do well on
the same land year after year.

The best celery is usually grown where the seed is sown where it is
to grow, but as it germinates very slowly, is very small and grows
slow for a long time after breaking ground and is very liable to burn
off, it is generally as easy to start it in the bed, where the seed is
generally sown about the first of April for the general crop ; for very
early it is put in a little earlier, but if planted too early it is liable to
run to seed.

Plants set after the first of July will usually make the best celery
to keep, as it is much less liable to disease and is much finer grained
than what grows in warm weather. It can be used to follow any early
crop and does nicely set between every other row of early cabbage if
the cabbage are cleared away carefully and the ground thoroughly
worked, but the land must be rich and in good condition or it will not
be a satisfactory crop. I have had very good luck setting it after
strawberries, but the land must be rich and thoroughly worked. I
should not think of trying a crop of late celery without using fertilizer
liberally. In fact, we seldom plant any crop without using fertilizer,
and the more manure we use the more anxious we are to get a second

30 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, [1895.

crop, and if a few bags of fertilizer will push the crop a few days
earlier and make it of better quality, it pays well.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. S. H. Record. Mr. President., — I notice the essayist spoke of
lettuce and the possibility of growing it so that it would be cheaper
in the market than it has been. I would somewhat question that pos-
sibility after some seventeen or eighteen years' experience in growing
it, from the fact that it costs some five or ten times as much to grow
it under glass as to raise it under open culture ; but we may have
to sell it cheaper. When we do, we will diminish our greenhouses
and diminish the crop growing ; that has been practically the case
this year. We have been adding greenhouse to greenhouse until this
past year. While it was said by some of the market gardeners when
they went to Arlington, they could hardly find a man at leisure to
talk with them because they were so busy building so many green-
houses. This year they have hardly raised any lettuce. Ten years
ago I made up my mind that the South would very soon knock us out
on lettuce growing. During the last few years, however, we have not
had much competition from the South. Down there they have grown
it chiefly in Florida. Last winter when I was in Philadelphia, and
also the winter before, there was a great amount of very fine lettuce
shipped from Florida, and it was shipped in such quantities as to knock
the price down so that it was hardly worth while to grow it under
glass ; and that has been discouraging some of our northern green-
house growers. Mr. Budlong, who is one of the largest gardeners in
New England, has five or six greenhouses, and two or three hot-
beds besides, containing lettuce. He went to Florida about a year
ago, and he said he came back as sick a man as he ever saw ; and I
felt just so myself when I went into market in Philadelphia,
when I was there last winter. He said he was not goiug to build any
more greenhouses. But you know near the very last of December we
had a frost that destroyed all the oranges and lettuce in Florida.
Now we began to ship to Philadelphia, and our first lettuce met the
Florida lettuce there. One man had various vegetables valued at
$45,000. He had $42,000 offered him on Friday for what he had in his
garden ; on Saturday he said he would have taken forty-five cents for
the whole of it. Now we have letters from Philadelphia wanting us to
send all the lettuce we can every week ; they say even if it comes
there Saturday, the day they generally don't like to have it come,
they want it. Many of our greenhouses here have not nearly the

1895.] ESSAYS. 31

amount the}' generally have to supply the want, now that the South-
ern crop is cut off ; but that is an exception here in New England.

In regard to the difficulty of growing it, I wanted to speak of one
or two points which Professor Goessmann gave us here last week,
that we have not always understood, on various fertilizers and con-
ditions of the soil. There is great difficulty in growing lettuce by
artificial heat at this season of the year ; the days are so short and the
nights so long that it is extremely difficult to grow it without its be-
coming diseased. There are various fungoid diseases, some of which
we kuow and some we do not know, which will sometimes nearly
ruin the crop after it is almost ready to ship.

Professor Goessmann explained to us, when the soil was lacking in
potash, how we could tell it. That was the reason of the rottiug of
the lettuce at this time of the year.

Some are growing it by electricity ; he thinks it is a benefit. I
know that a plant will grow better under electric light than it will
around the corner of a building where the light don't shine.

Mr. Budlong, one of the largest growers in New England, said,
"You may perform the same operation as to planting, temperature,
culture and watering and all that, and you never will get the same
result twice alike in lettuce growing." One man told me after he had
grown lettuce forty-five years that he thought it was only mere luck
and chance, where he grew four crops a year he only got about one
good crop once in four years. This is not showing a great deal of
ability. In regard to other vegetables, I presume there are others who
will have more to sa3^

Mr. Stevens, of Wellesley. Mr. Chairman, — I have been especi-
ally interested in the very practical essay of Mr. Kinney ; I admire
the ground he has taken in making quality the leading point. I am
not much of a vegetable grower, devoting more of my time to small-
fruits, but he has said several things of which I heartily approve.
Among others, that on account of the intelligent criticism we meet in
the market of New England, they require a first-class vegetable put
up in first-class style. We must turn our attention, I think, in fruit
culture, in flowers and in vegetables, to perfection in quality as well
as size.

Mr. Kinney spoke of celery, the Prince of plants in the vegetable
family, so wholesome, so nutritious and so desirable that I hope our
tables will be supplied with it at every meal possible. He also spoke
about the new fancy kinds, the beautiful foliage almost equal to flow-
ers. My attention was once very strikingly called to that in a trip I

32 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

took to Canada. I went into a restaurant at Toronto, beside me sat
two sons of the Emerald Isle ; after giving my order I reached over
and took a branch of the beautiful White Plume. One of them cried,
" O Mike, Mike, watch the lad ateing the bouquet." Such a plant as
that I think should be encouraged as much as possible.

I also find in the cauliflower another delicious plant. I have always
loved Peter Henderson, who introduced the White Snowball cauli-
flower. If we grew a few less cabbages and a few more nice, early
cauliflowers it would be more profit to the grower. Potatoes, to-
matoes and squashes will always be in the market. We can improve
in quality, size and color.

It is well that the seeds which are sent out by our congressmen can
be sent to the experimental stations to be tested before they are put
into the hands of the growers. I hope that this good work will go on ;
and from the hands of the persons who conduct the Worcester County
Horticultural Society, one of the first in the land, we may hope for
good fruits. May success attend their efforts.

Mr. Charles Greenwood. Mr. President, — I must certainly ex-
press my appreciation and pleasure for the paper that was read by Mr.
Kinney. He has expressed my ideas very w^ell in the general tone of
his paper in regard to the varieties of the market. I notice one
thing in his paper, one departure from his usual line, in regard to
fertilizers. We all know what to expect from the Kinney family, the
senior or the junior. They advocate the commercial fertilizers ; but
in the paper to-day I gleaned that they are not wholly given over to
their exclusive use but recognize the value of the use of stable ma-
nure. In regard to that, it depends very much on the soil as to which
shall be used. In my own case I find that stable manures are more
satisfactory, and I shall probably use less of the commercial fertilizers
this year than I have in any previous year. I shall, however, this
year, use the special fertilizers for potatoes with no stable manure.
But the majority of my soil being rather moist, it needs a mechanical
action of the coarse manure to lighten the soil ; and on such soil I
don't think the application of the chemical would be at all satisfac-
tory without vegetable matter, which the stable manure affords.

Question. Won't you tell us why you use more stable manure ?

Because I think I can better afford to use that.

Question. Is it for cheapness or for quality?

I might say, for both, being as near the city as I am, it is better to
have the team at work and drawing the manure at the price I can ob-
tain it than pay out the money for the commercial fertilizer ; but I am

1895.] ESSAYS. 33

satisfied that on the most of my soil it wouldn't give the best results.
I know that with a liberal supply of stable manure I seldom fail to
get a satisfactory crop.

Mr. Frank J. Kinney. Mr. Chairman., — I think Mr. Greenwood is
getting old, the same as myself; that is a very broad statement he
made. The older I get I believe the less I know. When I first be-
gan to talk before this Association I thought I knew something about
growing vegetables, but now that I have heard so much, I begin to
think that I don't know anything and never shall. Just as I think I
have learned something about the working of the ground some one
else steps in with his new ideas and entirely overturns mine.

I don't think I can add anything to the paper that you have heard
and the remarks that have been made, unless it is that five years ago
the fact appeared that it was a great deal cheaper to use special fer-
tilizers than to pay the enormous prices which we had to pay for
stable manure. Since we began on fertilizers we have had the ad-
vantage ; I can better afford to haul from the city at Si. 50 a load the
same as I used to pay four and five dollars a load for. It makes a vast
difference, and I am a little afraid that it will affect my neighbor on
the right a good deal, as well as myself. I don't do it because I
think it is better myself, but because I think it is cheaper. We must
produce goods so that we can sell them cheaper, and still we must
keep our quality up. There are lines of goods that we cannot sell
in the winter, lettuce and other vegetables that are not eaten because
people think that they cannot afford to buy them. Now we have got
to learn to produce them cheaper. There is no doubt but what we
can save a large per cent, on help if we are judicious. We can get
better help. The help question has been the greatest drawback. I
have often had my attention called to the fact that so very few have
been brought up in the business. By the time that you have got a
man so that he is good for anything, somebody else wants him and
will pay him better. Now we have learned that we can take some
classes of foreign help that will learn better and that will do better
work than the American help that we have been fishing for. All we
have got to do is to keep our eyes open. I would rather have one
good Swede that will work at a good price, than to have any Ameri-
can man I ever saw.

Mr. David Fiske, of Grafton. Thank you, Mr. President! I
don't think I can enlighten this company any in regard to raising
vegetables. The more I do the less I know. I believe that my
experience has generally agreed with the essayist as far as I know.

34 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

I never raised any lettuce under glass. I don't quite understand why
there should be any wrangling about raising lettuce. I plant lettuce
in the early spring, when the ground will work, and it grows.
There is no trouble about its growing, I grow it just as easily as I
grow grass. Now there is one thing that has not been touched upon,
perhaps because it is not exactly a market-garden crop, and yet it is,
and that is turnips. Now I have tried a great many times to raise
early turnips, but have never succeeded in getting anything that is
good for anything. Last year I had a piece of new ground that had
not been ploughed up for forty years to my knowledge. I trimmed
all of the trees that were there after I had ploughed it, and got quite a
heap of brush on top of the furrows. I burned that over, which left
a good heap of ashes ; then I put on some phosphate and sowed some
black turnip seed. The turnips came up and they grew, and I
thought they were going to be good ; but when we came to eat them
they were not good for anything, they were as poor a lot as I ever
raised, although I noticed that there were good early turnips in
market. In regard to Rutabaga turnips, I liave raised some that
were first-rate. I planted them about the middle of July ; they did
not come up until after we had a good smart shower in August ; they
grew finely, and they cooked splendid. The year before, when we
cooked them they were black inside and strong. I don't know enough
to know why I have good ones this year and last year didn't have
good ones. I raised them very largely on phosphate this year, and
I did when I had black ones. I had, perhaps, a half-acre and I
put on some privy manure and I don't know but what they were just
as good and perhaps a little better there ; they grew a little larger than
anywhere else. I had a little bit of experience last year with cauli-
fiowers. I have raised splendid ones. Last year I got some early
plants and I set them out, and then I cultivated them. They began
to head out pretty soon and they got a head as big as a silver dollar,
and then they stopped. I don't understand it, so you see I don't
know anything about raising cauliflowers. Onions is another crop
that has not been touched upon ; I have always until this year had
good luck with onions. Last year I had a piece of old ground,
and also a piece of new ground, side by side. I had fertilized the whole
piece with stable manure, and I harrowed it in and ploughed it
thoroughly, and I put on about a bushel of wood-ashes to the square
rod, then 1 put on a pretty fair dressing of superphosphate, and
then sowed onions, four kinds of beets, several kinds of carrots,
lettuce, parsnips, etc. All the parsnips did splendidly, and the

1895.] ESSAYS. 35

onions came up pretty well, but for some reason they didn't grow,
and then I got some nitrate of soda. I had an idea that that would
hustle them. It generally does with crops ; and I put it on the onions
and took considerable pains to keep the weeds cut. I have found a
good deal of trouble in regard to help. They most all of them want
to let them alone until thej' can get a good strong hold. I find it
almost impossible to get anyone who will go through a row of onions
and leave it as it ought to be left. There will be weeds left. Well,
I took care of these onions myself ; but the onions didn't seem to
grow as I thought they ought to, so I put on some more uitrate of
soda and phosphate, and right beside them, the beets grew splendidly ;
but I never succeeded in getting the onions to any size. If anyone
knows how to raise onions, I wish he would tell me.

Mr. F. J. Kinney. Mr. President, — This statement of Mr. Fiske
reminds me of the trouble one of my city customers had last year.
He had quite a little garden, so as to have something to do. I was
going there every three or four weeks, and wondered why he didn't
ask me to look at his garden ; but as he was a very deaf man, I
didn't think it worth my while to interfere. Well, it kept along until
everything grew smaller and smaller, and one day he asked me to go
into the garden. I went, and after looking around a little he asked
me what to do to make the vegetables grow. Well, he had gone
through about the same process as Mr. Fiske, only in addition,
he had taken out everything that looked like a stone. Well, I says,
" I should hate to tell you, my friend, but you have done everything
except to give them a little water, and that is what they need." For
the next three months he had streams of water running through
them, and they grew beautifully.

Has Mr. Fiske anything to say about water?

Mr. Fiske. I didn't have any.

Mr. S. H. Record. I hope anybody here who intends to plant a
garden, won't rely for a moment on any seed which you get from
Washington. It may be good, and it may not. I often think of a
remark our Secretary made once of a lady who was exhibiting flowers ;
she came to him and told him she had got some flower seeds from
one of our Congressmen. She was very much elated to think that she
was complimented enough to have some sent to her, and he did not
understand, but after he had got it fully in his mind, he said, " Well,
I hope you are not going to risk your reputation by planting them."
It is the same about vegetables, if our President has ordered them to
be tested at our experimental station then it will be all right to use

36 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

them, but I should advise every one to have them tested first. Just
one word in regard to help, — Mr. Kinney said that the difficulty was,
that the help didn't know anything ; now I have found it just the oppo-
site ; they know it all. Nearly twenty years ago, I guess, my man was
hauling manure here in the city, when a man stopped him and asked
if he wanted to hire some help. He replied that he didn't, that he
was a hired man himself. " Does your boss want to hire anybody? "
" Why, yes, he wants to hire a man that can grow lettuce under glass."
" Well, what is that? " " Well it is growing a plant they call lettuce
under glass." " O yes," says he, " it is grown the same as anything
else, I know all about it."

Mu. Wm. O'Connell. Mr. President., — I haven't got anything to say
of value. I was just listening to see if I could pick up something to
cure the diseases of those vegetables. I think it is about as interest-
ing a lesson as we could learn from a meeting like this, to give us a
remedy or some plan of action to do away with the diseases and the
ravages of the bugs and worms that attack the vegetables. I presume
all the market gardeners that know all about the secret like to keep
it to themselves. And I would like to know what to do with cab-
bages that are club-footed or how to do away with the green worms,
or how to do away with the maggot that attacks the onion. Now if
any one will answer either of these three questions — Mr. Kinney.
I will say right here, that a week from next Saturday, I am scheduled
to read a paper on fungi. Now I am not prepared to say anything.

Mr. O'Connell. 1 would say that I raised onions for the last
five or six years, and had very good success. I generally put them
in as early as the ground is ready to work, and I put on stable
manure. I get it all around the neighborhood and get it for taking
it. I believe that stable manure is about as good as any that you
get. Fertilizers I have tried of course, they are good to start up the
crops early, but have a tendency on certain soil to make the soil
heavy and damp. I had an experience with onions two or three years
ago. The year before that, I had a little experience with parsnips.
They were immense ; in fact, they grew too long. 1 had some that
were almost three feet long. I thought I would leave some in there
until spring, and then dig them out fresh ; but this year we had a
o-ood deal of snow on the ground, and there was no frost before the
snow came. After a while the snow all went off, leaving the ground
open and filled with moisture, and the consequence was, in the spring-
time the parsnips were all rotten. I ploughed up the ground and
sowed onions where the parsnips were, and 1 had the finest onions I

1895.] ESSAYS. 37

ever saw. Some of them would weigh one pouud. They were thick.
I don't believe in thinning out onions too mucli, because they will
push each other out of the ground. The ripest ones will come out of
the ground lirst, and they will go to market first; and then the
others will come in later, when you need them. My idea of telling
you this is, that I think that the parsnips made a fertilizer that
suited the onions. I hear a great deal about sowing clover ; I sup-
pose it is on the same principle, the rot goes into the ground and
forms a fertilizer.

Mr. James Draper. I don't know as you want to hear from me.
I don't know anything about vegetables ; my friend, Mr. Hartshorn,
here, can tell you a great deal more in that line than I can. How-
ever, I will take one moment. I don't think we want to encourage
those onions of our friend O'Connell, that will weigh a pound.
When we commence to work the scaling down of size, and scaling
up of quality, 1 remember the indignation of our friend Goodwin,
who hired a truckman to bring up a good load of enormous squashes,
that all came from one vine. He expected enough money in prizes
to pay the expense of bringing them, and he was very much pro-
voked because I did not award them the prize. Also, our Mr. Pond,
who brought in some spinach, one plant of which was large enough
to fill a bushel basket, and he was very much surprised to think that
we did not encourage that enormous growth. I believe that is one
of the best things this Society has been doing, the scaling down size
and requiring an exceptionally fine quality.

Mr. a. E. Hartshorn. 3Ir. President, — In regard to cabbage, if I
could see any signs of disease, I would watch the plant and treat it
with kerosene emulsion ; that is the best remedy that I know of for
cabbage.

Question. Kerosene emulsion with milk?

No ; that I spoke of was mixed with water and sprayed onto the
plant. That will almost always fix the green worms.

I would like to ask this brother who had trouble with club-foot,
if he grew the cabbages two years successively on the same ground?

Mr. O'Connell. Yes, I did, and I had trouble with plants that
grew on new ground. They grew club-footed during the season.

Did you raise your plants or did you buy them?

I bought some, and I raised some. I found both affected.

Mr. O'Connell. About the maggot in the onion. I always find
they come up very good in the beginning, but when they are about
five or six inches tall, the trouble begins. Now this is a disease that
4

38 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

is often fatal to onions, and I lose about half the crop; but, then, I
generally have a very good crop, because I don't believe in thinning
out until I see that all danger to the plants is out of the way. Now
there seems to be a certain time of the year for this maggot to work
which lasts about two or three weeks ; after that time is past, the
onion seems to grow all right. I see that some recommend letting an
onion patch that the maggots will injure, rest two or three years.
That is the only cure for it. The onion will grow on the same land
every year better than any other crop. They seem to be better on
the same land if not attacked by disease.

Mr. Watts. I suppose it is a well-known fact that cabbages can-
not be grown on the same land, on stable manure, two years succes-
sively. Cabbage is a plant that, if it is planted on new land, will
never be troubled with the maggot ; it may, however, grow stump-
rooted.

Now anyone who likes cabbages will surely like Brussels Sprouts,
and how much better it would be to grow fewer cabbages and more
Brussels Sprouts. They are delicious and go far ahead of cabbages;
in fact, they will do better than cabbages.

Question. You mean if you get good Brussels Sprouts?

I don't ever have any trouble in getting good ones. I certainly
should grow Brussels Sprouts in preference to cauliflower. I only
raise a little cauliflower for pickles.

Now I would like to move a vote of thanks to the essayist, Mr.
Kinney.

Chairman. It is moved that the Society give a vote of thanks to
Mr. Kinney.

Mu. FiSKE. Mr. President., — As long as the question of club-footed
cabbages is up for consideration, I can say 1 have had a little experi-
ence in this line. I set out to raise some very early cabbage, and I
got early plants and set them on a piece of ground that was ploughed
the August before, and it was mellow and in good condition. We
put on quite a large amount of stable manure and set out the plants
sometime in April. They grew finely, then after awhile they looked
wilted, and I found that they were getting stump-footed. I happened
to see in a newspaper that soft soap poured around the roots would
save the plant, and I got a few gallons of soft soap ; 1 put, perhaps,
a teacupful of soft soap around the roots, and then covered it with
dirt, and whether the cause of the stump-root had got through
working, or whether the soft soap saved the plant, I don't know.

1895.] ESSAYS. '69

but the biggest part of them brightened up and grew, and were a
splendid success.

Question. What was the quality of the cabbage?

They were good cabbages, they sold well, that is the test.

Speakiug about big onions, Brother Draper thinks he don't really
like the big onions. Now he would be pleased with my onions. They
had more quality than size.

The Chair announced that the next meeting, on Jan. olst, would be
addressed by Mrs. A. E. Henderson.

3ist January, A. D. 1895.

ESSAY

BY

Mrs. a. E. HENDERSON, Worcester, Mass.
Theme : — Incidents of Foreign Travel*

While our fair land is wrapped in the white blanket of winter, and
our rivers are silent beneath their icy sheets, let us turn our faces
southward to a land of perpetual fruit and flowers.

Amid a world of waters, the beautiful island of Barbadoes appears,
green with the growiug sugar-cane and dotted with windmills.

How lovely it appears to our eyes which so long have looked upon
ice and snow ! We sweep into the harbor of Bridgetown and anchor
amid a fleet of whaling-ships which chance to be lying here. Imme-
diately we are surrounded by small boats, whose black occupants
clamber on board in such numbers that I retreat into the cabin and
gaze through the windows, astonished at such audacity. When ordered
to leave by the officers, they express their determination to remain.
There being ten to one of the crew, it was useless to make any dis-
turbance with them. Each one was clamorous for the chance of car-
rying some one ashore in his boat. As in the case of certain adver-
tisements for help, the supply was more than equal to the demand.
We were told afterwards that they actually drowned one poor passen-
ger. He wished to go on shore and got into one of their boats, but
another boatman claimed him and pulled him into his boat, and still
another claimed him, until the poor man lost his life. Before I went
to Barbadoes, I was a strong abolitionist, but I found myself waver-
ing somewhat when the black natives took possession of our floating
home, and disregarded all authority. Finally the harbor-police boat
appeared in sight, together with the crew from one of the whale-ships,
and we got rid of our unpleasant visitors.

It is only the newly arrived ship that is troubled with them. Bar-
badoes is one of the most important of the British possessions in the

* A. D. 1869—70.

1895.] ESSAYS. 41

West Indies. It is twenty miles in length by twelve in breadth. The
population is very dense, there being as many inhabitants in propor-
tion to its size as there are in China. The blacks fairly swarm. The
island is sometimes visited by hurricanes. Some years ago it was
swept by one of these terrible storms in which thousands of the in-
habitants lost their lives, and a vast amount of property was destroyed.
Barbadoes may be called a sugar island, it being almost exclusively
devoted to the cultivation of that article, large quantities being an-
nually exported.

We visited several fine plantations and were much interested in the
process of sugar-making. The cane is cut from the field with huge
knives as we cut corn-stalks. It is then taken to the mill, where the
juice is extracted and the boiling process is commenced. It is boiled
in large iron basins, and from the skimmings of the syrup West India
rum is manufactured. After being boiled sufficiently and cooled, it is
shovelled into hogsheads having holes bored in the bottom, through
which the molasses drains into an enormous cistern beneath the un-
boarded flooring. When the molasses is all drained, I have seen
half a dozen negroes going from one hogshead to another tramping
the sugar with their bare feet. Recently a machine for packing the
sugar has been invented. The natives are very fond of chewing the
sugar-cane before it is crushed ; you can buy it anywhere in the
markets.

Sugar is one of the most unpleasant cargoes on board ship on ac-
count of the steam which arises in the hold. It sometimes turns the
white paint in the cabin a grayish color.

Trinidad is a large island situated on the northern coast of South
America near the Orinoco River. It is nearly as large as Porto Rico.
The same animals are found here that are found on the mainland of
South America. We entered the Grand-boca of the Gulf of Paria,
where we passed an English man-of-war which returned our salute,
making a pretty picture as she steered between the wooded islands
which formed the mouth of the gulf. We beat up the gulf and an-
chored off Port of Spain, the capital of the island.

Here we heard, for the first time, of the famous Asphalt Lake, which
is reached from the Port of LaBrea. This lake of pitch is considered
the greatest curiosity in the West Indies. It is unlike any other lake
in the world ; for you can walk upon its surface, although from a dis-
tance it resembles water. The atmosphere is very unpleasant and
people who are obliged to live near it are troubled with ague.

We were invited to dine at the consul's home. His sons were fine

42 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

musicians and were Protestants, the same as their father, while the
daughters and their mother attended the Catholic Church. After
spending a delightful evening we walked to the beach, where we found
our boat waiting to convey us to our floating home. Every dip of the
oar sent up golden showers of phosphorus, and when we arrived on
board the whole ocean was sparkling with every movement of the
waves ; a phenomenon which is frequently seen in the tropics. The
singing which floated over the water from a man-of-war made the
scene more enchanting. It seemed as light as day, and I brought a
Bible on deck and read a verse without any diflficulty, although the
print was fine. There are fine museums here which contain speci-
mens of the native birds with their wonderfully brilliant plumage.
The public gardens contain every kind of tree which grows in the
tropics. I was greatly interested in viewing the wonderful variety.
The clove tree, with the ground covered with cloves, which were of
a red color before they dried, was a wonder to me. I had never
thought before how they grew, and picked one or two bunchesto pre-
serve as a curiosity. The tree is quite tall, with dark green leaves.
The nutmeg tree is very beautiful. I picked up the nutmegs from
the ground, which was covered with them. They are covered with a
dark, brown shell, outside of which is the mace. Then comes a cover-
ing like our walnuts, which they sometimes preserve. The tea has a
small white blossom with yellow centre. The cinnamon tree we
robbed of a specimen of the outside bark ; the inner bark is what we
use for spice.

The tamarind tree with its long, brown pods containing the re-
freshing acid fruit ; the vanilla vine with its clusters of vanilla pods ;
the pepper vine ; the guava fruit ; the pomegranate; shaddock; and
countless varieties which we had never seen or heard of, — greeted us
on every hand.

At Point Icaque we took on board our cargo of cocoanuts. The
surf is very high here all of the time. We rowed as near the shore
as we could and were then carried through the surf by the natives to
avoid being wet.

We can look through the glass and see the mainland of South
America, from whence small boats come around us laden with various
articles for sale. We bought some parrots and a macaw, which is a
large bird of most beautiful plumage. The jigger is very plentiful
here and one must be careful about going with bare feet. We were
invited to dine with the owner of the cocoanut plantation. Before I
left the table I was made very uncomfortable by a peculiar sensation

1895.] ESSAYS. 43

in ray foot. After dinner I remarked to the planter's wife that some-
thing was the matter with my foot and I could not stand it any longer.
She invited me into her room, and upon examination exclaimed, "You
have a jigger in your foot, a bad one," and very dexterously cut it out
with a penknife, much to ray relief. There are miles of cocoanut
trees here. The plantation we visited contained a grove of 12,000
trees. They grow to a height of fifty or sixty feet. The leaves are
fifteen feet long, shaped like a fern ; two leaves are shed annually.
They .droop gracefully from the top of the trunk, the nuts being in a
cluster at the base of the leaves. The natives go up like monkeys
and slash off the nuts with a knife. The cocoanut palm thrives well
near the salt water. The nut is a great traveller, and finding a rest-
ing-place on some reef with only a little moisture, germinates and
grows into a graceful tree, affording food, utensils and numberless
aids to man. The nut, before it is ripe, is nearly all milk ; and the
natives never think of eating it when hardened, as we have them here.
They drink the milk and eat the soft nut with a spooq. They use
cocoanut oil made from the hardened nut.

Dominica is said to be the loftiest of the Antilles. Some of the
mountains are volcanic, sometimes discharging burning sulphur.
The springs possess medicinal virtues ; some are hot enough to boil
an egg. J-{osewood is common in the forests. Honey and wax are
abundant. Roseau is the capital. We entered Prince Rupert's Bay,
and anchored oft" Portsmouth, where we procured a quantity of yams
and bananas. The yam is a good substitute for the Irish potato.
When the paring is taken off it is white. We found it very palatable,
prepared like mashed potato. It is not sweet as many imagine. The
tubers are of enormous size, weighing several pounds each. The song
says "The yam will grow." I don^t think there is anything in the
potato family that can beat it in size.

The next morning, after we had anchored in the bay, a boat came
alongside containing two boys who had rim away from a whale-siiip ;
they begged us to take them home, but before we could make any
arrangement with the poor fellows the police-boat hove in sight and
they were taken back to the whale-ship. They had had enough of
the romance they had read about in dime novels, but they must finish
the term of service for which they enlisted.

The island of Haiti presents a beautiful picture. It is a range of
mountains rising from the sea. The smoke curling upwards here and
there, which we noticed as we drew nearer, was caused by the burning
of brush by the natives. The meaning of the word is the land of

44 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

high hills. It is separated from Porto Rico by the Mona Passage.
The ruountains are between nine and ten thousand feet high. It was
here that slavery was first introduced on this continent. For nearly a
century they have had their freedom, but they have utterly failed to
demonstrate to the world their capability to govern themselves. They
are fast relapsing into barbarism. We were told that cannibalism
was actually practiced in the interior of the island ; a fact which we
could readily believe. Darwin must have travelled in this island
when he became convinced of the origin of his ancestors/' The
monkeys had a more civilized look than some of the native Haytians.
It is said that they are less civilized than the blacks of Central Africa.
The white man here cannot own any land except through his black
wife. They cannot vote or hold office. In Jacmel, the richest mer-
chant's wife was as black as the stove. Some of his children were
white and some were black. It was wonderful to see how carelessly
the native women would walk along with a large tray of cakes and
fruit upon their heads. They would also carry kegs of water. We
walked into the country and saw them half-clad, standing in a shallow
stream, thrashing the garments upon rocks, which speedily wears them
out ; so that one must be well supplied with linen when travelling where
washing is done in this primitive fashion. The little children were
playing by the wayside untrammelled by the useless article of clothing.

The black men will do anything to get rid of work ; lie, steal or
live upon the earnings of the women. Our custom-house officer was
a black man ; and, in the absence of the captain, he stole one hundred
and fifty dollars in gold from a desk in the state-room, which was care-
lessly left unlocked. It was useless to look after him, as he left the
place ; and with such a princely sum for that climate, where little
clothing is needed and where nature has provided abundance to eat,
he could live in luxury for a long time.

Nature has done everything for this island. The luxuriance of tlie
tropical vegetation is something that cannot be comprehended by one
who has not seen it. The laborer is repaid with three harvests a year.
The tall trees are filled with blossoms of every variety and color.
Those which are not flowering trees are a support for various climbing
plants, which unfold their fragrant blossoms to adorn the tree. In a
land so full of bloom the wild honey is abundant. Tins is truly a
land llowing with milk and honey. The bad government, however,
keeps the white man with his enterprise from its doors.

The beautiful oleander, with its huge bunches of rose-colored blos-
soms, claimed our admiration, and carried us back to childhood days,

1895.] ESSAYS. 45

when we admired the oleander in the window-garden and listened to
the following story : " When Hero's lover was washed ashore by the
waves she buried him under an oleander tree, where she was accus-
tomed to sit and mourn. A traveller chanciog to pass was attracted
by the rare beauty of the flowers, and inquired the name. Hero was
so absorbed with her grief that she could only repeat, ' O, Leander !
O, Leander ! ' The traveller, thinking she had told him the name of
the flower, wrote it down in his note-book."

The firefly is very brilliant. I could read by its light, moving it
along beneath each line. I was told that the natives use them for
lanterns.

The Rio de la Plata, or silver river, is the widest river in the world.
At Montevideo the width is sixty-two miles. At Buenos Ayres ships
can now lay alongside the wharves to discharge cargo. Formerly
they anchored several miles from the city, and were at the mercy of
the dreadful pampero winds, which occasionally sweep across the tree-
less plains. The seasons here are just the opposite of ours, — June
21st being the shortest day and December 21st the longest. The
climate is very fine and the winters mild. The streets are laid out regu-
larly. You can take a street-car, or tramway as it is called there,
and soon reach the plains, which stretch away for miles and miles,
where the cattle roam wild. The half-civilized life of the cattlemen
causes them to consider one who cannot throw the lasso over the
horns of a wild animal as effeminate. In the city you fiud cultivated
people of all classes from Europe and North America. We attended
church and found a large congregation of people from North America.

We visited the museum, and were greatly interested in the various
animals which inhabit the forests of South America. There was an
enormous boa-constrictor, stuffed and festooned on one side of the
hall. It was as large round as a water pail, and I did not find it hard
to believe that they could swallow an ox. I should rather not meet
one alive. We took on board a cargo of hides and wool, and half a
dozen live sheep for food. A few years ago the cholera broke out in
Buenos Ayres and created a panic. The dead bodies were carted off
in cart-loads, and sprinkled with lime and burned. In Mendoza,
one-half of the inhabitants were wiped out by cholera. Rosario, on
the Parana River, suffered terribly. There is no better climate any-
where; but the sewage of so large a city was in a dreadful condition,
and Buenos Ayres had to learn a lesson.

The island of Cuba is 6G0 miles long. It is the '' Queen of the
Antilles," and furnishes one-fifth part of the world's sugar. The

46 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

Havana lottery is conducted by the government and infatuates all
classes, from the poor washerwoman to the millionaire. I was told of
a colored man who drew a large fortune and suddenly found himself
surrounded by a myriad of friends who were all anxious to assist him
in spending it. His habits became most aristocratic, and his money
and friends melted away as quickly as they came. The hotel-keeper's
wife in Matanzas told me that she drew five thousand dollars.

The rainy season lasts from May to November. It pours so hard
that you cannot listen to conversation. During the hurricane season
the islanders sometimes have frightful experiences. A lady who was
in Matanzas during one of these storms, told me that the water
rushed over the city at such a rate that the people who were caught
oat were washed down to the harbor. Ropes were stretched, which
some caught and were saved ; others were rescued by the ships whose
anchors held, and mauy perished. While Matanzas was flooded, all
the water was swept out of the bay of Cardenas. The stauuchest
ships afloat are sometimes left high and dry upon the shore ; the houses
are upset ; trees are uprooted, and general destruction prevails.

While in Matanzas we rode in a volante, which is a kind of chaise,
with very heavy and high wheels and long shafts. One horse is
between the shafts, another is hitched to the left side. It is a very
comfortable carriage in which to travel over the rough roads of Cuba.
As you walk along the streets, you can look into the rooms and see
the ladies engaged with their fancy work, etc. They have no need of
glass windows to keep out the cold, but have shutters or blinds which
are closed at night.

In Sagua la Grande the town is a little distant from the wharf, and
the captains were obliged to take the train back and forth. They
always rode in the first-class car, while the American Consul took the
third-class. One of the captains asked him why he rode in the third-
class car. " I ride in the third-class car," he replied, "because there is
no fourth-class." One could not but admire such independence. Our
government does not provide a very liberal allowance for some of its
consuls, and they are obliged to practice the most rigid economy and
get what they can from travellers. West India rum is so plentiful here
that the sailors are always begging to go on shore. One evening two
were granted permission to go. Sometime during the night, we were
aroused by the news that the two were overboard ; in trying to get on
board they had both fallen into the water. All hands turned out to
rescue tliem, and soon I heard them tossed upon deck like logs of
wood. Those two did not go on shore again.

1895.] ESSAYS. 47

Those who have enjoyed tlie delightful experience of a visit to the
tropics appreciate the educational value of time spent there. " The
tropics are nature," says James Rodway, who has interpreted the
individuality of trees, and found them to be as sensitive as human
beings and resembling them in many ways. Each tree struggles for
existence among the crowd, selfishly pushing aside others in reaching
upwards towards the sunlight, and crowding its roots amid myriads of
tangles in search of food and water. Here in the tropics we see the
survival of the fittest, the stronger trees crowding out the weaker.
We have not been accustomed to look upon trees as individuals, but
to the observer in the tropics the resemblance is perfect, and we can
understand our Park Commissioner's affection for trees. They are
to him as companions ; they cannot talk, but there are human beings
who are mute. The investigator can find sermons in stones. If we
study them, we will find friends in trees. The South American for-
ests contain hundreds of species, unlike our forests, which contain a
small variety. The pineapple, that most refreshing of tropical fruits,
grows wild in the northern parts of South America. From the fibres
of the leaves cloth is manufactured. The cassava bread is extensively
used in hot countries. The poisonous substance of the root is ex-
tracted by heating, and thin flat cakes are made, and are much
esteemed by the natives. We purchased some of the bread and also
of the root.

It is not a very delightful experience to sail through the Straits of
Gibraltar in the night-time, with the wind blowing a gale and raining
hard. All hands were on deck and on the alert, as we worked our
way through the portals- of the Mediterranean. We entered the
straits at' midnight. At three o'clock, the rock loomed up before us
with its light on Europa Point. As day dawned we found ourselves
in the blue Mediterranean, where we gazed upon the snow-covered
mountains of Spain, which we were rapidly leaving behind. The next
day we passed Algiers Bay and Cape de Gata, on the north coast of
Africa. That night we experienced severe thunder and lightning with
hail, and passed the Baleares Islands, which are five in number,
Majorca being the largest. The northern part consists of lofty moun-
tains.

We passed Sardinia, Maritimo, Sicily, and entered Malta channel,
where we looked through the glass at the celebrated fortress of Malta.
La Valetta, the capital, has been called the most beautiful small city
in the world. When opposite Greece, our topgallant-mast was car-
ried away, a frequent occurrence in the Mediterranean. The crew
were six hours clearing away the wreckage.

48 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

Off the island of Candia, or Crete, we were driven by a gale direct-
ly towards the shore, and were powerless to change our course. Such
times as these you envy those ships that are propelled by steam. I
was quite seasick at the time, but dressed myself and children, and
remained in the cabin awaiting our fate. Everybody on board had a
serious look ; and the captain was consulting the chart to find the best
place to steer on shore, when the wind changed and, with deep grati-
tude, we bade adieu to the island of Candia. It is one of the largest
islands in the Mediterranean, 140 miles long and 30 miles in its widest
part. It is mostly mountainous, excepting in its eastern part. The
capital is a walled city. When opposite the Nile, we saw a tree which
had floated down the river.

Cyprus is a large island in the eastern part of the Mediterranean,
nearly opposite Syria. It was once of great importance, but is now
in a neglected condition. Leaving Cyprus behind, the next land
which met our gaze was the coast of Syria, off Tyre, where we were
delayed by a calm, which lasted all day.

The next morning, we came in sight of the mountains of Lebanon,
and looked at the village of Sidon through the glass. In the middle
of December we entered the harbor of Beirut, after a voyage of
sixty-three days from New York. A pilot, dressed in Turkish cos-
tume, was taken on board. We anchored very near the town, which
is the principal seaport in the Holy Land. The captain went on
shore, and, when he returned, brought a basket of oranges which
were grown in Syria.

My curiosity was excited by the peculiar dress of the pilot, and I
asked him how the women were dressed. He replied, that all the
women he saw were wrapped in white sheets. I was provoked at such an
answer, but found, upon going ashore myself, that he had spoken truly.
We find all the good things in Beirut, — oranges, figs, dates, almonds,
English walnuts. In fact, nearly everything you can mention is to
be found in the stores. Partridges and such wild game were very
large and fine; mutton was also abundant.

Large quantities of Mulberry trees are seen, which proclaim that
you are in a silk country. The harbors of Syria are mostly unsafe
when the wind blows from certain quarters. In bad weather we are
in danger of being driven on the rocks, and are obliged to weigh
anchor and drop into St. George's Bay for protection. When the
wind blew from the desert, my face felt burned while I remained on
deck. We drove on the Damascus road to the foot of Mount Leb-
anon, and saw the orange trees heavily laden with green and golden

1895.] ESSAYS. 49

fruit. The date palms are very graceful, and the fig trees are common.
It is quite an experience to eat a ripe fig taken from the tree. When
they are fully ripe, they burst open, showing the seeds ; they are
sickish sweet, and I much prefer them when dried. The olive tree is
very plentiful in all parts of Syria. The oil is used extensively in
cooking and for various purposes. The color of the tree is a light
green, similar to the willow. We passed camels heavily laden with
stone, and a caravan of gypsy-lookiug carts carrying produce to
Damascus.

We were invited to the home of our consignee, the wealthiest mer-
chant in Beirut. The residence was palatial, the ceilings very high
aud the floors of mosaic marble.

The furniture was covered with silk from Damascus. I wns
admitted to the apartments of the merchant's wife. She was smok-
ing a nargileh aud ordered the servant to bring one to me. I thanked
her very kindly ; but there was as much tobacco in the cup when I
finished smoking as there was 'when I began. Those who are accus-
tomed to smoke, enjoy these water-bottles very much. We were taken
to ride in the merchant's carriage, a magnificent affair from America.
The houses are built of stone, with flat roofs, where the families gather
in the evening, and smoke their cigarettes and nargileh, and sleep
beneath the awnings. The streets are narrow, and arched in some
parts of the city. The feuces are of prickly pear or cactus, whicH
bears a red fruit.

We invited the merchant's two sons on board to dine with us.
When they sat up to the table I was much distressed to notice that
they did not remove their hats, or fez as they call them, so I very
politely invited them to do so. They informed me that a Turk never
removes his hat while eating. I felt more comfortable after hearing
that.

The young men were very highly educated, and were very agreeable
aud entertaining. They could converse in several different languages,
but as Bayard Taylor remarks, in describing a Turk who fascinated
him by the noble elegance of his manner, " In any country but the
Orient, I should have pronounced him incapable of an unworthy
thought ; here he may be exactly the reverse." It is not thought
necessary to educate the young ladies. When the father of a family
is absent from home, he addresses his letters to his oldest son, instead
of his wife.

Bidding adieu to Beirut, we sailed up the coast, where we looked
upon the snow-covered mountains of Lebanon and many small

50 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

villages until we cast anchor in Tripoli. The bay is nearly seven
miles long and bends in circularly. The town is situated at its
southern end, at the foot of some high lands at a little distance from
the sea.

Before we were allowed to laud, the pilot whom wc took from
Beirut, held oui- bill of health for the health officer to read ; finding
it all right, he shook hands with us and welcomed us on shore. The
streets were very narrow. The houses were built of stone, with flat
roofs, the same as those of Beirut. We went into the merchant's
office who was to furnish us with a cargo of wool. He hunted round
and found one old chair, which was kept as a curiosity, and passed it
to me to sit upon.

The American consul was a native of the place who had been
converted to Christianity, thereby suffering much persecution from
his family. We walked outside of the gates of the city, where we
found donkeys and their guides waiting for customers. My husband
was trying to persuade me to take a ride ; but being unused to riding
as the Turkish ladies do, I was rather loath to accept of his invitation.
Just then a gentleman rode up to the gate and, seeing that we were
foreigners, introduced himself as Mr. Lowery, an American mis-
sionary, and said he should be glad to be of any assistance to us.
I dislike very much to hear our missionaries spoken slightingly of,
as they sometimes are by travellers. I have very pleasant recollec-
tions of missionaries and their families whom I have met in foreign
lands, and when I see a convert to Christianity like Antonio Tunis,
the American Consul at Tripoli, I feel that we cannot give them too
much credit for the noble work they are doing in lighting up these
dark places in the remote parts of the earth. Women, in particular,
should be interested in missionary work. If they could travel in
these countries and s.ee how little their sex is regarded, they would
think America a paradise for women, as a celebrated traveller has
called it. What makes America the paradise for women? I need
not tell you that it is Christianity. Everywhere in the East we are
followed by beggars. Many of them have children which they carry
upon their shoulder, with the child's arm around their neck. In
Beirut, while waiting at one of the stores where my husband trans-
acted business, an old beggar woman Came along soliciting alms.
One of the clerks, to amuse us, knocked over the old woman and
held her down l)y the neck, all in a playful manner ; but it spoke
louder than any lecturer could speak of how the Turks " reverence
and respect women."

1805.] ESSAYS. 51

As we walked along the streets of Tripoli, every gentleman who
had met my husband, would embrace him and kiss him upon each
cheek. I expected my turn would come next, but I found that
women were of no account whatever in this part of the world.

Here the Mohammedan religion prevails. The Koran takes the
place of our Bible. Long pilgrimages are made to Mecca, the birth-
place of the prophet. Many die from the fatigue which they undergo
on the journey, and those who return wear a badge of distinction.
Before they start on the pilgx'image, they settle up their affairs in
case they do not return. We visited one of their houses of worship.
The vestibule was filled w'ith shoes ; long rows of worshippers were
bowing and prostrating themselves flat on the floor, all in perfect
unison, while the leader repeated the prayer aloud. There are no
seats of any kind. The floor is covered with mats or carpets. Some
of these mosques are very beautiful, and are very numerous in all
the large cities. The Orientals are devoted to their religion, and
pray several times each day, with their faces always towards Mecca.

"We were invited to the consul's house to dine. He asked Mr.
Lowery what he could do to entertain us. He told him he thought a
variety of the native dishes of the country would be a novel feature
of the dinner. So we had all manner of mixtures set before us,
many of wliich one would have to acquire a liking for. We also had
an abundance of food which we could appreciate. The consul's
residence was some distance from the port, so I was obliged to ride
on a donkey, in the Turkish fashion ; but not having on the Turkish
dress, I presented a most ludicrous appearance. About half-way we
met a company of boys walking towards the port. They laughed
loud and long at my riding-dress. When we returned on board ship,
we found that the boys had been examining our floating home ; as
the American flag was rarely seen in that harbor, as the anchorage is
by no means safe, and the winds often tempestuous. We walked to
a beach and gathered some shells, which were a foot deep for a long
distance. We scooped up as many as we wished with our hands.
The surf rolled on the beach several feet high on a calm day. In a
sale it must have been somethino; awful to behold. Our merchant
invited me to call upon his wife. The room was furnished with mats
and divans. Thfe lady could not speak English and I was unable to
speak Arabic, so we gazed at each other and smiled, sadly lamenting
our inability to converse. She presented me with a sponge attached
to a rock, which had been brought up from the bottom of the Medi-
terranean by divers.

52 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

To enjoy travelling in Syria, it is important that one should be
familiar with the Bible. I know that I never before read it with
such meaning as I did when my eyes beheld the places and customs
of which it speaks. I saw the humble inhabitant dwelling beneath
his own vine and fig tree, with his children growing like young olive
plants around him.

In sailing past St. Paul's bay, where Paul's ship was wrecked and
the crew were all safely lauded upon the island, it was doubly inter-
esting to have read of how Paul gathered a few sticks to put on the
fire, when a viper was warmed up and fell on his hand. I could
imagine that he gathered sticks ; for there is no wood on the island,
the fuel being brought from Sicily in ships.

Bidding adieu to the unsafe harbor of Tripoli we enjoyed sailing
up the coast, and in a short time anchored in the Bay of Iskanderun
or Alexandretta. This was once a place of considerable trade, beiug
the port of Aleppo, but it is now in ruins. It has the best anchorage
on the coast. The bay extends about 40 miles in a northeasterly
direction and is 17 miles broad. We counted 150 camels comiag in,
laden with produce, from the interior. While crossing the desert the
camels go without water for several days at a time, having drank
enough before starting to last them. The driver carries fresh water
in a skin bag taken from an animal, and when it has evaporated, as it
sometimes does, he has been obliged to kill the camel in order to
save his own life, by drinking the water found in the camel's stomach.
Water is scented by the camel long before the driver is aware of its
being near. These "ships of the desert" carry heavy burdens, weigh-
ing from 600 to 1000 pounds. They can travel 35 miles a day.
There are caravansaries where man and beast can find accommoda-
tions for the night, but they must carry their own provision.

During Ramazan, the Turkish fast, which lasts about a month, the
Mohammedans are not allowed to eat, drink or smoke from sunrise to
sunset. It was very hard on the workmen who were putting on board
cargo. But they make up during the night and endeavor to eat
enough to last through the day. The rich reverse the order of things,
and get around the fast by sleeping all day and feasting during the
night.

We enjoyed walking on the beach at this place, gathering the beauti-
ful, variegated stones, which we brought home and gave to our friends
to use as papcr-weiglits. The cones from the pine tree are valued for
the seeds, which are highly esteemed, when sugared, as confectionery.

While lying in the Bay of Iskanderun, a Russian steamer arrived.

18i)5.] ESSAYS. 53

Henry M. Stauley unci Mr. Taylor, the Atnerican Cousul froiu Cairo,
Egypt, wore ou board. It was so rough in the bay that the passen-
gers could uot laud. Mr. Stauley and the Cousul, seeiug an Amori-
eau ship iu [)ort, ran the risk of capsizing, and made us a visit.
There was an old gentleman from Baltimore, engaged iu writing a
book ou his travels, among the passengers ; but he did uot dare to
risk himself in a boat when the harbor was so rough. If a balloon
had lauded ou deck I should not have been more surprised than I was
to liud that a boat was alongside iu such a sea. Mr. Stanley had just
visited the American colony, the members of which had been deluded
to leave their native land and settle in Jaffa; and he entertained us
with a description of the forloru condition of the remnant of the
colony which he found there. Most of them had found their way
back to America, sadder but wiser people.

Mr. Stauley was on his way to the dark confluent to discover
Livingston. He was then a young man, full of energy and daring,
quite a contrast to the prematurely old and gray-headed man whom I
heard lecture in Mechanics Hall a few years ago. The African fever
and explorations in an enervating, tropical climate had told upon his
iron constitution.

When our distinguished visitors returned ou board the steamer, the
old gentleman they had told us about came ou deck aud cheered and
waved his hat, like a schoolboy, when he saw our beautiful stars aud
stripes which were thing to the breeze from the mast-head to honor
our countrymen on board the Russian steamer.

" Ah! when the wanderer, lonely— friendless,
In foreign harbors shall behold
That flag unrolled
'T will be as a friendly hand
Stretched out from his native land,
Filling his heart with memories sweet and endless."

The longest day I ever experienced was when I was in quarantine.
We came in to New York without a bill of health ; and although
there was no sickness ou board when the Doctor examined us, or no
one sick during the voyage, a law had been passed that we must show a
clean bill of health. Failing to do so, we were sent to the quarantine
ground for twenty-four hours, and went through all the purilication
process just the same as though we had yellow fever on board.
After the voyage is completed, how one longs to set foot on shore,
and meet familiar faces once again, only those who have been
(iuarantiued can appreciate.
5

7th February, A. D. 1895.

ESSAYS

BY

PRACTICAL CULTIVATORS.

Theme : — Practical Talks on Floriculture.

O. B. Hadwen. The hour for which this meeting is called having
arrived, I will ask you to come to order. The subject this afternoon
is. Practical Talks on Floriculture : a subject which interests most
everyone.

There is nothing more beautiful, nothing that can embellish our
homes, and our gardens, and our farms, so well as the display of
flowers. The interest has grown in late years far beyond what we
originally expected, so that now you can scarcely pass a single house
in the town or country, without seeing a display of flowers in the
windows, in the woods, or in the fields. Perhaps there is nothing
tliat gives more pleasure to all, than a good display.

I am one who believes that the people who get the most out of
life have a fondness for flowers. Farmers can grow them. Everyone
can grow them, especially ladies ; they know more about flowers
than men.

I know that sometimes when I go down to Boston and get some-
thing entirely new, and bring it home and plant it out, and then
when I get it nicely to going, I will ask my wife to come to look at
it, and she will say, "O yes, my mother had that more tlian fifty
years ago;" so old things become new.

But the chair don't propose to take up the time of the audience, so
I will call upon Mr. Blake of Rochdale.

WINDOW PLANTS.

Fred. A. Hlakk. A few words to beginners on the culture of win-
dow plants. Two of the principal reasons of failure suggest their
own remedy, viz. : Dry atmosphere of rooms, over- and uuder-water-

1895.] ESSAYS. 55

ing. Other causes of failure are : Watering with very cold water in
the hottest part of the day, instead of at night or early inoruing when
the roots are nearer the temperature of the water.

Miscellaneous collection of plants, natives of torrid and frigid
zones, in same window, under same conditions, which reminds one of
the Irish woman who complained to her landlord that the water had
risen so high in her cellar that it had drowned her hens. He replied,
"An' why didn't yer kape ducks." The moral of this is: Select
plants suitable for the position in which you are obliged to grow them.
Both pond lilies and portulaccas will not flourish in the same tub.

It is natural for the flower lover to covet every variety of plant he
sees ; but if he wishes for success, he will consult some competent
florist, explaining to him the conditions under which the plants will
have to be grown, and let him select such varieties as are best suited
to those conditions. Thereby he will save time, money and serious
disappointment.

Among the best plants that may be selected for the average window,
I would prefer some of the varieties of fibrous and tuberous begonias,
for winter and summer respectively. By their proper use, we may
keep our windows beautiful the year round ; and they have one great
advantage, — so far as I am aware, there is no insect foe yet dis-
covered that troubles them.

With the pots about one-third full of suitable drainage material
there will be no danger of over -watering, unless it may be from leav-
ing water standing ou the crowns of the tubers in the tuberous section,
which would cause the shoots to rot otf .

Of the fibrous section, I will mention as a few desirable varieties :

Thurstonii, one of the best for beauty, Ijothof foliage and of flower.

Semperflorens Gigantea Rosea, a continuous bloomer and most
beautiful. Then

Rubra and Metallica.

Vernon, which anyone can easily raise from seed, is always covered
with bloom, even when only an inch or two high, and is a very desira-
ble plant indoors or out.

Alba Picta, pretty, ornamental foliage and good flowers.

Argentea Guttata, beautiful foliage.

Manicata, Aurea, large glossy leaves blotched with creamy white.
Delicate blush-white flowers ou long stems.

Pictaviensis, leaves bronzy green on face, underside rich purplish
red, large clusters of rosy- white flowers.

Diadema Robusta, grand variegated foliage.

56 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

Otto Hacker (new), fine foliage and bloom.

Wettsteinii (also new), fine ornamental foliage, flowers similar to
Rubra, but lighter color.

With these, a few of the Rex varieties might be desirable, though
the air in most living-rooms is unsuitable for them on account of its
extreme dryness, which for human as well as plant life should be ob-
viated.

Of the Tuberous section, unless one has a large amount of money
to spare, one will find the mixed Tubers about as good as the named
varieties, and they cost much less. The best way of all, however, is
to grow them from seed, starting iu January, or even in December,
so as to have plants in bloom from early summer till fall.

For one who has never tried it before, it is quite difficult to start the
seed ; but it is really very easy after you know how. I will not take
your time to explain, but can tell you all I kuow about it iu a very
few minutes iu reply to any personal requests.

I have named only a few of the many beautiful and desirable varie-
ties of Begonias ; but with these, and one or two suitable Palms and
perhaps an Azalea, say the beautiful Veitchii Grandifiorn, one may
have a window that will be a joy the year round.

Mr. Watts, as requested, will give us something in relation to
flowers.

They asked me to give you, this afternoon, my experience in grow-
ing Gladiolus. They think we understand it as well as anything else.
You are well aware that the Gladiolus makes as fine a show in our
gardens as any flower. Then it is a very showy flower, and is a lasting
and useful flower ; for when it is necessary that we should use any for
making decorations there is not a flower that is its peer. In the little
talk, whicli I am to give you, I will show the way we propagate the
Gladiolus. (Here he cut the bulbs into eyes). Now, they take that
eye and cut it out; but vvlien you cut it, it is not exactly as the potato.
You have to be very careful to cut oft' a portion of the rim that is
close to that eye ; for the simple reason that all the roots which form
are around there, and that starts the new bulbs to grow. The bulbs
that have flowered will never flower any more. The bulb that you
plant does not flower, because it flowered last year ; but by cutting the
eyes out like that, these little bits will grow, but they will not make
flowering bulbs this year. But next year will. In starting with the
seed, of course they grow little bulbs. Late in the second year, after
the sowing of the seed, if you have good success, they will come into
flower. There is only one bulb the second year, like this one iu my

1895.] ESSAYS. .57

hand. The choicer kinds will have a tendency to grow like that. They
don't increase rapidly like the poor ones. One bulb so planted will
produce three. Now at the foot of these little bulbs, there are a lot
of little ones like them ; they are what we call bulblets, and will
produce other bulbs true to its variety every time. I am asked a
great many times doesn't the Gladiolus run back ? I will say right
here, they don't run back? They come true to the variety of those
planted every time, and the reason that people suppose they run back,
is because the good one only produces one and the poor ones produce
five or six. The good one is liable to die. I never knew any poor
ones to die, if we are anxious to propagate a variety. These little
bulblets are covered with a very hard shell. You take it and split it
with a knife, and peel it off. That makes it grow twice the size that
it would if you had planted it as it naturally grew on the side of the
bulb. Some bulbs when planted only produce one bulb, but they are
liable to have three or four and sometimes a whole handful. A poor
one will increase a great deal more rapidly than the good one.

I have jotted down here a few names of varieties that I know are
desirable. I will say right here that anyone wishing to grow Gladi-
olus will do well to take some of the named kinds ; for you know what
you are growing and can reasonably expect to receive good results.
When you grow mixed varieties, of course they make a fine show ; but
if you ever want to gain any desired point, you are not capable of
doing it. Now I will start and run through a few of the best varieties.

Addison's^ it is a very dark one and always comes good.

Aurora., this is another fine one that always comes good. It is a
bright salmon.

Baroness Burdette Coutts, this is one of the finest. It is a choice
shade of lilac. Anyone wishing to grow a good flower, there is no
Gladiolus that takes its place.

Camelian. this is another very attractive flower ; it comes very
close on the spike.

Conqwant, this is an immense spike ; it is very large and is a dark
crimson with a white centre. It is a very fine thing.

Crupsele, is a light one, and has a very small bulb ; the flower that
it bears is equal to the one that the Baroness Burdette Coutts bears.

Flamhigo, is a very large, striking, magnificent flower, and is a
bright scarlet.

La Candeur, is a white one with a stripe through the centre of the
lower petal.

Drajy D'Or, is a dark lemon ; but when I say lemon, there is a

58 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

great variation in the light and dark ones ; but it is the only color that
we could actually call them.

Meyerbeer, is a scarlet one, and is one of the oldest ones we have.
It has a fine spike, and is one of the most attractive ones that we
have.
■ Norma, is another good one.

Pacto, is an early one ; it is a light lemon and is a very fine flower,
and one that always comes good. I never saw a poor one.

Brenmis, is another very fine flower which always comes good ; it
is very showy and is a very dark slate with a white throat.

Shakespeare, is a light one, and one of the best of the light varie-
ties. Anyone wishing to grow light, that is the one to grow.

Snoiv-white, is as white as anything we have. With me it is not a
good grower ; I have seen some pretty fair stalks of it, but I have
never succeeded in growing any myself.

Those I have named are of the Hybrids of Gandavensis. Now
comes the Hybrids of Lemoines. They are advertised as being a
hardy kind. They are perhaps hardy, but they have got to be under
such favorable circumstances that the ground won't freeze down to
the bulb. I have left them out-doors on purpose to test this thing.
I know they have been planted in places where they stayed for years,
but the frost never went over three or four inches into the ground,
never far enough to reach the bulbs.

Lafayette is a very desirable one.

Rochambeau and Gumbleton are both good ones.

All these flowers you must remember come in the shades of purple
and yellow. It is one of the distinguishing features of them.

Within the last few years they have introduced a new hybrid. It
is called the Hybrid of Nancianum. I have not grown those. I have
seen them grown considerable. They are very large flowers ; the
color is very striking, but there are very few flowers open at the same
time on the spike. If you wish to buy a spike of Gladiolus, you
want one that has five, or six, or a dozen flowei's in bloom at a time.

Question. I would like to ask if Gladiolus don't go back, why it
is wc don't see some of the kinds we used to see as distinct now as
they were in former years.

Answer. You do. The African, at my house, is just as distinct
as I ever saw. It is a very hard bulb to propagate. When I say
that they don't degenerate, I have never yet seen any bulb that I
planted degenerate. They do die out; for often I see lots that I grew
years ago, and which I know I have never done anything to, to dis-

1895.] ESSAYS." 59

place, that I have not got now. And, then, there are lots of kinds
that I used to have that I don't possess now. It is an indisputable
fact, that the class that is now being grown is a great deal superior
to the class grown ten years ago.

Question. Have we any better than the Eugene Scribe?

Answer. Engene Scribe is one that I intended to mention ; it is
one of the finest ; it is just as good to-day as it ever was.

We must all remember and not feel disappointed, that when you
come to an exhibition of Gladiolus, and see so many fine flowers
there, and you say that you can't grow them like that, that the one
that grows hundreds and thousands has a large crop to pick them
from. Those that grow but one or two dozen have only a few to
choose from.

Question. Will you tell us how to grow Gladiolus?

Answer. I have already run over my time.

Question. Well, I think the members will allow you a little more.
I think they would like to know about the soil ; as to what soil is best
adapted to it ; how deep to plant ; the time of the season for them to
blossom; what time to take the bulbs up; and how they are kept
through the winter. Now, there are some questions to answer.

Answer. Now, to start with the cultivation. The best land that
we have ever found to grow them on, is partially moist, sandy loam ;
it doesn't want to be wet, but it wants to be moist, and it wants to be
land that has been worked one or two years. I would use as a ferti-
lizer either stable manure, or bone-dust, or one of the fertilizers that
is on the market. P^ither is good, of course the bone-dust or fertilizer
is better for anyone that is only growing a small quantity. To plant
the bulbs we run a horse-hoe through the soil, digging a furrow four
to five inches deep. Then, if we use commercial fertilizers, we strew
them along into that trench and then scratch a little dirt over it, and
then one fellow takes a brush and stirs it up and that mixes the
manure through the soil. We don't use any stakes ; the Gladiolus
grow up and they have to stand on their own bottoms, and if they
don't do that they get pulled up.

We dig the bulbs in the fall, as soon as the leaves commence to turn
yellow, along the last of October to the first of November ; but I think
we shall begin to dig about the first of October after this. This year
we had a snow-storm come on the last of October and that very much
discommoded us, yet it didn't discourage me. I thought that would
all go away in a day or two, but we were very sorry to see that it came
and stayed ; thus my advice will be to begin to dig the Gladiolus pretty

60 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

early, soon after the first of October. There is one thing, if the
Gladiolus is planted correctly, it will take a great deal of freezing
before the bulbs are damaged, because they are four inches under the
soil ; and in the early fall it has got to be very hard freezing that will
freeze down four inches in depth. But I will say that though we dug
as rapidly as we could, before we could get them all dug, that cold
freezing weather went so deep into the ground that the bulbs were
perfectly encased in the soil. Part of them were hurt and part of
them were not. First, we dig them all up and lay them on the
ground, then with a knife cut off the top's about an inch from the
bulbs ; then put them into the boxes. If we have more than we have
room for, we put them into barrels, and put them into the cellar.
We have at the present time some barrels in the cellar that have not
been handled. Now, anyone who has only a few to handle, the best
way is to dig them up and keep the tops on. They will dry perfectly.
After they get thoroughly dry, we take them and take the old bulb off
from the new ones, and then they are clean, and ready for sale or to
be planted next spring.

Question. Well, you have described how to get the soil ready, and
how to spread the fertilizers through it, but I don't think you told us
how deep to plant them ?

Answer. Four inches.

Question. I don't get the idea?

Answer. We get a trench four inches in depth, and plant them
there.

Question. How close in the row?

Answer. Well, at our house the boy takes a pail and he goes along
and strews them in the trench so that they will be anywhere from one
on top of another to a few inches apart ; but if anyone wishes to do
this scientifically, I suppose the prescribed rule would be to plant
them about six inches apart. But we get just exactly as good fiowers
when they are put in some on top of the others and some two or three
inches apart. We plant them very thick, for if you plant them too
far apart they take up too much room. I will say one thing: we
make our furrows about thirty inches apart, so that there is thirty
inches between the rows. We do it all by horse power, only just the
weeding in the rows; that is done by hand, so as not to injure the
plants. Does that cover the questions?

Answer. It covers all mine.

Now are there any other questions any one would like to ask? I
will say one thing ; along the last few years the display of Gladiolus

1895.] ESSAYS. 61

at our Hall has not been so liberal as it used to be. I don't know why
it is. I don't see why any lover of flowers should forego the pleasure
of having a few Gladiolus.

Question. How long does it take those little bulblets to flower?

Answer. It will take three years. The first year of their growth,
you get a little bulb as large as a pea ; but the bulb, as that is now,
will grow right on the top of that little one that is inside, and it will
be just about as large as what that is. Next year that will make a
good reasonable growth. My seeds will make bulbs from the size of
a good Marrow pea up to the size of a walnut. I don't know but what
they would keep on growing all the time. I have never tried it ; but I
think I will go home and sow some seeds to see if they will grow
continually and keep growing and come into flower.

Mr. Draper. By planting them as thick as he suggests, so many
stalks together will be self-supporting. I have very clear recollec-
tions of the way J. M. Earle used to plant Gladiolus. I happened to
be at his place one time when he was laying out a l)ed. He was a
vei'v methodical man. He had laid out his bed the length of his gar-
den and four to five feet wide, made it very rich and raked it over ;
and then he had that marked out as regular as the squares on a
checker-board, so that every bulb would be planted six or eight inches
apart. Then he would place his Gladiolus where those cross squares
would intersect each other, and six inches in depth. Thus they were
planted so many inches apart each way and just so many inches deep.
They were very symmetrical.

One thing about Gladiolus ; there is no flower that will keep so
long in the house as that will. There is no flower that will produce
a better effect.

Mr. Watts. I would like to say I have tried this thing and proved
that so much labor is perfectly useless. You had better put them in
as I have put them in, and take a chair and sit down and watch them
grow.

I will show you that all the labor of our friend Earle and the way
he put them in is perfectly useless and amounts to nothing.

There, now, he has taken a good deal of pains to put them in per-
fectly upright, and put them down just six inches. Now this eye on
top dies, this one here below is going to grow ; but it is not going to
come up straight, it is going to start right up here. Now he has lost
his line of symmetry. If he is going to put a stake there, he can do
it easily enough. I used to do as everybody else did. I used the
stakes to keep the Gladiolus straight, but now I have abandoned that
* and put down strong stakes, about three in the length of this room,

62 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

and run a wire from stake to stake, through the centre of the rows ;
and then as they came up, — the wire was eighteen inches or two feet
from the ground, — we would tie the Gladiolus to that.

Mr. Pond. I have grown Cannas a great deal, and I think I
always have good luck with them. This winter I asked Mr. Hixon
if he wouldn't take my bulbs, and he took them and kept them, and
this spring he informed me that he had lost them. I think I have
discovered a way to keep my bulbs : I put them into my boiler-room
and there I got them thoroughly dry. I examine them occasionally
and they look as if they would come through nicely.

In preparing the ground, I take a piece about twelve feet across,
in a circle, and put in about four barrels of night soil ; then in about
three weeks I set out my Cannas and water them every night, and
keep the water on them about as freely as Mr. Hixon does on his
Sweet Peas. I don't know but what I grow them about us large as
anyone. I think I showed Mr. Hixon my Cannas, and he can judge
if he ever saw any much larger. My Sweet Peas, I just dig a trench
and dig it down about six inches deep, and then take a spade and go
down about six inches more and loosen it up, and then I fill it up
most full of either some night soil or what comes out of a cesspool,
and then 1 work it together. I intend to do that in the fall. As to
picking, I am very particular ; one portion I pick one day and another
the next ; if I see a bud I pick it off. Keep them picked as close as
possible if you want a good many flowers.

And my roses ; I have a large variety of very fine ones. I have
one bed twenty feet square. I make it as rich as possible, and last
sprmg I put on some of that which came out of the cesspool ; I think
I put eight barrels into that bed, and then I put on some manure.
In the spring, at the proper time, 1 cut them down to about a foot
from the ground, perhaps a little lower, and I have roses from June
to November.

Mr. Draper. Our friend Pond must have a monopoly of Pond's
extract.

There is a great deal of complaint from those that grow house
plants in the winter season. Some ladies make their plants look well
all tlirough the winter, and others have their plants look tired and
discouraged. I wish friend Blake would tell us how to get rid of the
insects.

Mr. Blake. Mr. Chairman, — I don't know what the best way is
to grow plants. For the best plant on all occasions 1 recommend the
Begonia. These are only a few varieties that I happened to have in
bloom, but they are always in bloom. The best way to have a window

1895. J ESSAYS. 63

full of tlowers is to have some Begonias. There is such a variety of
foliage. I can't imagine a better window than one full of Begonias.
If you get Geraniums and Petunias, most of them being summer
bloomers, you don't have good success. Now with the Begonia you
don't have any trouble with insects. As to getting rid of insects, it
is utterly impossible.

Question. Is the Begonia sensitive to gas?

Answer. 1 don't think it is. It is the only plant that is satisfac-
tory for the house grower. They won't stand a great many degrees
below freezing.

Mr. Hadwen. I want to speak for the Helianthus, which is the
sunflower. I have taken quite a little pains the last few years to get
a collection. It has quite a large flower, and is very effective out-
doors. I believe I have some sixteen varieties, some of which will
grow as tall as this room. Some of them have perhaps a thousand
blossoms, and as they are so tall they make a beautiful ornament for
the garden. I have been very much pleased with my experiment.

Then there are the peonies in various varieties. There is none that
surpasses the old-fashioned red one. I have a little plot at ray home
which I have set out solid with one kind (that is the old-fashioned
red kind), and there is nothing in my grounds that equals it. The
foliage lasts all summer after the bloom is gone, and is really an
ornament in itself. They are growing in favor. They need rich
land, as all flowers do.

One of the most exquisite flowers that we have is the Anemone
Japonica from Japan. It is very handsome, with white petals and a
yellow centre. It is not liable to be injured by insects, gives a fine
autumn bloom, and seems to flourish in all soils.

Then there are the Rhododendrons, which are growing in favor.
We used to think they were not hardy, but now we have a great many
kinds that will stand the most severe climate.

Then there is our common Mountain Laurel ; it looks beautiful in
the fields, and until lately we have let it stay there. Still, when it is
cultivated, it seems to be a favorite. I think that they don't want
too much shade. They don't want to be planted under trees that sap
up all the moisture. They will repay a little care in their cultivation.
Anyone can take them up and plant them, and they will feel that
their care and time are amply repaid.

I4th February, A. D. 1895.

ESSAY

BY

Miss ARABELLA H. TUCKER,

State Normal School, Worcester, Mass.

Theme : — Trees of Worcester and Vicinity.

In these modern days of amplification and extension in every
department of learning, and especiallj^ in that of science, when the
good old fences that used to define so exactly the fields of knowledge,
that in a fourteen weeks' course we could learn all there was to know
on any subject, have all been thrown down, the possibilities of
human attainment have come to seem almost boundless. Stimulating
as this is to the imagination, it is a little discouraging to the average
individual, who finds it impossible to keep up with the results even,
that are being attained by those who are working in special lines.
Only the teacher of a country high school in some very remote
district pretends to an acquaintance with astronomy, l)otany, chemis-
try, geology, zoology and the various other " ologies " that his
course of study requires him to teach ; and even he would not claim
to have a very comprehensive or exhaustive knowledge of any one of
these great subjects. The genuine scientific man in these days is a
specialist ; he gives his days and nights to investigation and study,
not only of a single subject, but often of a small subdivision only of
that subject ; witness the case of the enthusiast who devoted his
whole lifetime to a study of the crayfishes of South America. This
tendency to specialization, or rather this necessity for specialization,
is well shown in the modern scientific literature. The titles of the
books show their limited range. The latest book on Ornithology, for
example, " The Bird's Calendar," by H. E. Parkhurst, treats of the
birds actually seen month by month in Central Park, New York.
Another recent one is called, "The Hawks and Owls of the United

1895.] ESSAYS. 65

States in Their Rehitiou to Agriculture." There is a kind of ftishion
just uow of taking some restricted locality and making a study of
its plant life or its animal life, its rocks or its soils.

It looks then as if we must all be either specialists or smatterers :
you may contend that a specialist is necessarily narrow, but I know
it is one of your horticultural axioms that a small field well cultivated
will yield a better harvest than a large area which one has neither the
time nor strength to attend to in any proper manner. Since we
are forced to decide between these two alternatives, it seems to me
the part of wisdom, out of the great number of possible interests, to
" choose the one that we love best"; and having chosen, to give to
that what small portion of our time and strength remains, after the
" getting and spending" in which we " lay waste our powers."

If I were asked what subject of out-door study a dweller in a city
could most profitably and easily pursue, I should answer unhesitat-
ingly The Trees ! We Americans are reproached witii not knowing
the names even of the trees that grow in the streets through which
we walk every day, and I think you will agree with me that the
reproach is not unjust. Curiously enough, these splendid representa-
tives of the plant world are not so generally known as the smaller
and less striking forms. Persons of considerable botanical knowl-
edge, who may be said to be on terms of intimacy with the common
wild fiowers and somewhat familiar with even the rarer species, have
hardly a speaking acquaintance with the trees. That is, while they
may know a maple from an oak, and an elm from a horse-chestnut,
they do not distinguish the different species of maples and of oaks,
nor know that the horse-chestnut is not as native to our soil as
the elra. This ignorance is partly due to the fact that in the ordi-
nary text-books of descriptive botany, the parts of the trees described
are mainly the flowers and their organs, which are difficult to get at,
generally inconspicuous and always short-lived. In later Manuals,
such as Apgar's " Trees of the Northern United States," and New-
hall's " Trees of North-eastern America," attention is directed to
some of the more permanent characteristics, such as leaves, bark,
wood, fruit, &c. ; and the species are identified by means of these.
With the help of the very ingenious key which accompanies each of
these books, there is no reason why a person with no previous train-
ing, should not be able to identify all the trees to be found in our
locality. But there is some time and labor involved in getting
specimens and comparing them with printed descriptions, and some
exercise of discrimination and judgment in deciding whether the two

^6 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

correspond so closely as to make identification absolutely certain ;
and there are many of us who would like to know something of the
trees about us, who have neither the time nor the inclination for the
kind of work this involves. For the benefit mainly of such persons, a
kind of tree directory has been invented, and the evolution of such
a book is an iuterestiug example of the specializing tendency I have
just mentioned. The French botanist Michaux, who did so much
work on our Flora, first published his North American Silva, which
he called ^ A Description of the Forest Trees of the United States,
Canada and Nova Scotia," in the year 1819. A good deal of ground
he had to cover. In 1846, agreeably to an order of the legislature,
George B. Emerson wrote his Report on the Trees and Shrubs grow-
ing naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts, a less ambitious work
in its scope, but more thoroughly done. In 1891, John Robinsou, of
Salem, wrote a detailed account of the trees growing in the streets
and gardens of his own city, accompanying his descriptions with
exact locations. If he had wanted any exclusive right in this inven-
tion of his, Mr. Robinson should have had it patented ; for it was
followed in 1892, by Prof. Humphrey's " Amherst Trees," in which
the author claims to describe and locate all the trees growing within a
radius of a mile of the post-office in Amherst. Last year a similar
account of the trees of Worcester appeared, and I know of at least
one other New England city, Augusta, Maine, whose trees are being
inventoried in a like manner. Let us consider for a minute the con-
venience of such a guide to those interested in studying the trees.
You all appreciate the ease with which you are able to find auybody
by means of your city directory. If you want Thomas Smith, and
don't know where he lives, you consult the bulky volume of Messrs.
Drew and AUis, and find immediately his street and number. Sup-
pose it is the Norway maple you want to make the acquaintance of
and you don't know where it is to be found. If your tree directory
is at hand you can find with equal readiness where it is at home. If
this isn't levelling this particular hill of knowledge, it is at least
putting an electric railway to the top and making the ascent possible
without elt'ort. Perhaps you read that, at 772 Main Street, there is
a well-grown specimen of your maple; the next time your business
or your pleasure takes you in that direction, your acquaintance with
it will at least l)e inaugurated, to be continued in future meetings ;
and in the case of many trees, if you are found worthy, to ripen into
friendsliip and even intimacy. And how much pleasure is added to
our restricted city lives by these friendships ! A walk over brick

1895.] ESSAYS. 67

pavements has little that is ideal about it ; most of us would choose
a country road instead. But if we have eyes to see, there is beauty
and ever-varying interest over our heads ; for few of our thorough-
fares are destitute of trees. Pleasant Street, for example, has little
to recommend it but its trees. I don't believe a stranger would be
greatly impressed by its width or its architectural beauty ; but looking
up the street toward the west, its vista of arching elms, especially if
there is a background of sunset sky, is one of the loveliest sights our
city can show. What a barren waste Front Street would be if it
were not for the fine trees that have been preserved on the Common ;
and what an irreparable loss Main Street suffered when its splendid
old elms had to go ! To a real lover of trees they are equally beauti-
ful and interesting at all seasons of the year, and we do not properly
know them unless we can recognize them as quickly and as easily in
winter as in spring or summer. On some accounts winter is the most
favorable time to observe them, for then the distinctive habit of each,
which is disguised by the foliage in summer, may be seen at a glance ;
the bark is more beautiful and more clearly shown, the character of
the spray, the markings on the twigs, the size and position of the
buds, are all features by which we are enabled to distinguish the
different species as readily as we do when they are clothed in their
summer attire. Spring, the season of unfolding buds, is a very busy
time for the tree-lover; from the blossoming of the white maple, the
last of March, to the flowering of the chestnut, the last of June, he
must be on the alert, or some beautiful but transitory stage in the
development of leaf or flower in some one of his favorites will
have escaped him. What has been called the " misty season '' of the
trees, when the unfolding leaves gives them the appearance at a
little distance of being enveloped in a soft haze, is a very short but
very precious time. We appreciate, in some measure, the gorgeous
spectacle presented by our trees in the fall ; but how many of us
know that the new leaves of spring are colored as beautifully, and in
many cases as brilliantly, as those of autumn ? Most of us have eyes
for the blossoms of the red maple covering the bare twigs like coral ;
but we are blind to that infinitely prettier sight, a rock maple in full
bloom. We look with approval on a horse-chestnut tree decked out
with its showy flowers, but the blossoms of the oak are entirely
unnoticed by us. The opening leaf-buds of the hickory, the half-
grown leaves of the oak, the flowers of the birch, — all these and
many other beauties are displayed for the most part before unseeing
eyes. Anything that succeeds in awakening an interest in the trees is

fi8 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

a boou, whether it be from a scientific standpoint or from a practical,
whether it go no deeper than a desire to know the name of each
merely or to collect a leaf from each ; for it makes us look at them,
which cannot fail to* result in greatly increased enjoyment of them —
and enjoyment, it seems to me, is the highest end of all instruction
and all training.

With all the trees in our public parks and private collections this
city furnishes an excellent arboretum for the student. Compaie our
opportunities in this respect with those in Salem. John Robinson, in
commenting upon the " Trees of Worcester " in a letter to the author,
says, " We have in Salem no public parks where trees may be seen
and studied." But with all our riches in this regard, one assistance
that might well be furnished the student is lacking, — our trees have no
labels. To anyone interested in learning them what a help it would
be if there were any place where named specimens could be seen !
If, in Elm Park for instance, where may be found an example of nearly
every one of our trees, there were a generous supply of labels, such
as may be seen on the trees in the Boston Public Gardens, the collec-
tion would be not only much more interestiug, but much more valuable.
I wish " the divinity that shapes our ends " in this matter — the Parks-
Commission — might be brought to realize the importance of doing for
the public what one member of the Commission has done for his private
grounds, and devote some small part of the annual appropriation made
by the city to letting its citizens know what kind of trees they have.

A somewhat careful enumeration of the trees growing here gives us
a total of one hundred and sixty-one distinct species, and it is quite
possible that some have been omitted from this list. Of these one
hundred and sixty-one species, fifty-six are strictly indigenous to our
soil, and consequently have the strongest claim on our attention and
regard. Of the remainder, thirty-five have been brought from other
parts of the United States, and we have seventy foreigners. With so
large a list as we have to choose from of trees that have proven their
adaptability to our soil and climate, it is a pity that the planters of
trees, here and elsewhere, during the last generation, have experi-
mented so largely with foreign species. Our own maples and spiuces,
our beech and our pine^have been passed by and the corresponding
European species planted ; in many cases an inferior tree to our own
and always at a disadvantage here because of new and trying condi-
tions. The very general planting of the Lombardy poplar during the
early part of the present century was the most colossal mistake of this
kind that we have made ; but those wisest in the matter consider our

1895.] ESSAYS. 69

present wholesale adoptiou of tbe Norway spruce, — not ouly more
planted here than auy other evergreen, but more than all others put
together, — a mistake similar in kind and hardly less in degree. Not
only does the fact tljat a tree is an exotic give it great value in the
eyes of inany, but if in addition to that it shows some abnormal char-
acteristics in foliage, or habit of giowth, it becomes almost irresistible.
For example : it being natural for leaves to be green, we seem to prefer
almost any other color ; and trees that show purple or bronze, varie-
gated or si)otted foliage, fill up much of the space in the dealers' cata-
logues. Nature gives us some leaves that are handsome because of
the way they are cut or lobed, as the maple and the oak, but it is art
that produces leaves that look as if they had been snipped out regu-
larly witli a pair of scissors till hardly any leaf substance remains ;
then if these little segments are curved in such a way as to suggest
an eagle's claw, we get a very popular tree. A tree whose habit of
growth is erect is greatly in favor if it can be made to weep or send
its branches downward, and weeping ashes and birches find ready
sale ; while if the tree grows naturally in a somewhat drooping manner,
like the elm, we are not satisfied till we have produced a pyramidal
variety that sends its branches straight up like a Lombardy poplar.
After scouring the whole continent of Europe for new species of trees,
adventurous arboriculturists, sighing for new worlds to conquer, have
turned their eyes toward Asia, and the latest fashions are all from
the East. It looks as if there would be no halt till we have tried
every tree that China and Japan can furnish. The similarity between
the flora of these countries and our own renders it likely that such
introductions will adapt themselves more readily to their new environ-
ment than have many of the Euiopeans ; the ailanthus, the gingko,
the mulberry and some of the magnolias have so far seemed to en-
courage this view, but the question is not one that can be settled in
short periods of time. Since we must wait almost a lifetime before a
final verdict can be pronounced in experiments of this kind, and as we
are all a good deal restricted in the matter of lifetimes, our mistakes
become practically irremediable. It is the province of the arboretums
and other public experiment stations to pass upon all doubtful cases.
With unlimited time and the power to command a great variety of
conditions, they can give the foreign immigrant the most thorough
trial, and decide whether it is capable of naturalization and what sort
of a citizen it would make in our republic of trees. Failures here
would not be so costly nor so depressing. Pending the decision of
such a tribunal, let us restrict our individual planting to those trees
6

70 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

that we know will be a delight and a solace, not only to ourselves,
but to succeeding generations — the trees that have sheltered our fore-
fathers and inspired our poets. Lowell was too genuine an American
to- have had any exotic tree in his mind when he wrote,

" Who does his duty is a question
Too complex to be solved by me,
But he, I venture the suggestion,
Does part of his who plants a tree."

Perhaps a little account of the classification and relationships of
our trees will not be out of place. Instead of belonging to a single
order or family of plants, as is sometimes supposed, they are dis-
tributed among no less than sixteen different families ; and if we in-
clude the introduced species, we find we have representatives of nine
families more. The largest order, by far, is the CujniUferce., the
great oak family, which is now made to include besides the oaks, the
birches, the alders, the hornbeams, the chestnut and the beech,
seventeen species in all, or nearly one-third of the whole number of
our native trees. We are very rich in oaks. We have white oaks and
black oaks, red oaks and scarlet oaks, chestnut oaks, and swamp oaks,
all to be found easily in and about our city. They grow slowly and
reach the greatest age of any of our trees. We are too new a country,
and our efforts have been too long directed toward cutting down trees
instead of preserving them, for us to have any reliable data as to their
age ; but in England there are oaks known to be a thousand years old.
There is little doubt that the white oak standing in the fence at the
east of the Thomas Street School is a genuine aborigine. Here was
the first burial-place of the early settlers, and it is on record that the
spot was shaded by a beautiful grove of oaks, of which this is prob-
ably the sole survivor. We are also rich in birches, having five
native and three foreign species. The commonest of all, the little
white or gray birch, is very generally known, but not half enough ad-
mired, lam convinced. There is no season in which it is not an im-
portant factor in the beauty of our New England landscape. The
true white birch is the paper or canoe birch, often supposed to be
confined to higher latitudes than ours ; but as a matter of fact found
all through this State and sparingly as far south as Long Island. Of
course it does not attain the size here that it does farther north, but
we have one specimen, that on the farm of Mr. F. J. Kinney at Tat-
nuck, which would compare favorably with the best of the great
birches of the New Hampshire forests. Looking at this splendid
tree, with its gleaming white trunk and branches, a birch-bark canoe

1895.] ESSAYS. 71

or tent seems a possibility. A large specimen of the black birch
growing on the hillside west of Goes Pond has attracted a good deal
of attention because of its peculiar appearance. The tree apparently
started as a seedling from under the side of a large bowlder, and in
growing its roots have penetrated a crack in the rock. As they have
increased in size and strength, they have lifted a mass of this rock,
estimated to weigh not less than fifteen tons, some distance into the
air. The yellow birch was one of the vegetable loves of Thoreau,
who considered the meeting it of sufficient importance to record in his
journal. In one place he says of it, "The sight of these trees affects
me more than California gold. In the twilight I went through the
swamp, and the yellow birches sent forth a yellow gleam that each
time made my heart beat faster." The commonest birch to be seen
in our city is a variety of that English birch that the poets have called
the " lady of the woods." I mean the cut-leaf weeping birch.

If we proceed on a numerical basis, the family to rank next in im-
portance to the oak is the (Joniferce, or pine family, for it contains
nine of our native trees, and a family that gives us the pines, spruces,
hemlock, fir, larch, white and red cedar, and arbor vitte will be
generally allowed to have other importance than that of mere num-
bers. To have produced the white pine alone, would be enough to
distinguish it. A tree of which Professor Sargent says, "It is the
most valuable timber tree of the region it inhabits and no other tree,
perhaps, has ever played such an important part in the material
development of a country. It has brought cities and railroads and
great fleets into existence, and furnished employment to tens of
thousands of laborers." We no longer allow these trees to grow to
the height of those we read of in the old forest, where they towered
two hundred and fifty feet and more toward the sky, and we have
little to help us in determining their age ; but the two old pines bor-
dering Institute Park, on Salisbury Street, and that in front of the
Wetherell farmhouse, at Newton Square, must have been standing
there before Columbus found his way across the trackless Atlantic.
Instead of planting such a tree as this, or our beautiful hemlock, the
Scotch and Austrian pines, the Norway spruce, and the gingko are
too often chosen.

The family that gives us the walnuts and hickories, the Jugland-
acece, ought surely to be named next. The true walnuts are the black
walnut and the butternut, but in New England we apply the term
wrongly to the hickories. Though the black walnut is not indigenous
to this part of the State, it is admirably adapted to our soil, and

72 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1805.

makes a handsome as well as a very valuable tree. Opposite No. 38
Hanover Street is growing a real English walnut, a tree that is sup-
posed to require a warmer climate than this. I have been unable to
find out anything of its origin or history, but it produces an annual
crop of nuts in no way inferior to those of the markets.

The Sapindaceo' includes the horse-chestnuts and the maples, each
genus having a good many valuable species. To the Rose family
belong, as all know, our best fruit trees, and in addition to the
apples, pears, and cherries, it gives us the mountain-ash, the wild
thorn, and the shad-bush. The Salicacece is the family that gives us
the poplars and willows, quick-growing trees, whose wood is of slight
value. Our native willows are mostly shrubs, but two of the P^uro-
pean species, which make good-sized trees, were introduced here so
long ago that they have become thoroughly naturalized in the older
parts of our country. The locusts, the virgilia, and. the red-bud are
found in the bean family, the Leguminosce ; the tulip tree and the
magnolias make up the family MagnoUacem; the nettle tree and the
mulberries belong with the elm to the order Urticaceai ; while of the
remaining species, the linden, the sumach, the tupelo, the ash, the
eatalpa, the sassafras, and the button wood, each is the sole represen-
tative of its family. Of all these trees, some are suited to one sort
of planting and some to another, not all are adapted to being set out
in our streets ; but I wonder if a much larger number might not be
profitably used for this purpose than is used here at present. One
hesitates before making a suggestion to such a body of men as the
Parks-Commission, who have done so much and such judicious work
for the future in providing our new streets with trees ; but I some-
times think the future citizen may weary of his miles of Norway
maples, his leagues of rock maples, and his avenues of white ash.
Perhaps these three species have proved themselves the best all-round
trees for the purpose under the conditions that prevail here, where
the two most necessary qualifications for a good street tree are said
to be the ability to pick up a living on a scanty diet, and patience
under abuse of every sort. But the best, if used exclusively, may
become monotonous. Has the elm fallen into disfavor as a street
tree ? It would be hard to understand why, with such examples of its
possibilities as Lincoln Street shows. The silver maple is seldom
planted, and I know the objection is made that it is fragile and easily
damaged in storms ; but such trees as that at the Washburn place on
Summer Street, and the one at the corner of Harrington Avenue, go
far to restore our confidence in its hardiness. The linden and the

1895.] ESSAYS. 73

tulip, the tree of heaven and the poplar, are generally considered well
adapted to the street, and I wish we might have avenues of oaks and
beeches.

My only argument for the study of trees is the pleasure to be had
from it. Of the educational value of such study I have said nothing.
I believe I cannot do better, however, in closing, than to quote what
Professor Sargent says of this aspect of the subject, in an editorial
article in "Garden and Forest," entitled "The Tree as a School-
master." " When its economic uses are to bf considered a wide field
opens to the tree-student as he learns how great a part it plays in
every enterprise of man. To it he owes his dwelling and his boat,
his oar and his weapon, often his clothing and his meat and drink ; it
has modified his character, determined his history, and been a staple
of his commerce with other lands. Far-reaching has been its influ-
ence upon the race from prehistoric days until the time when the
wooden walls of England became the bulwark of that liberty of
which our independence is the outcome. Thus the story of the tree
leads to the history of the race which it has so strongly infljiienced,
and opens out the whole human horizon to its pupil. Hence he who
makes a companion of trees, and seriously seeks to learn the secret
of their importance, finds his own mind and knowledge constantly
expanding with the effort to master this ever-widening topic. As the
subject grows, he himself grows ; his silent but wise instructor con-
ducting him step by step to higher and wider outlooks ; to a more
comprehensive grasp of information ; to a keener understanding of
humanity; to a deeper reverence for nature; while filling him with
unending surprise at the educational resources of that schoolmaster
which has opened to him the door to the whole world of knowledge."

2ist February, A. D. 1895.

ESSAY

BY

JOSEPH JACKSON.

Theme: — Our Native Plants and Flowers.

If the constantly increasing number of books, both technical and
popular, which deal with plants and plant-life, is any sigu of the in-
terest in native floras, then there never was a time in the world's
history when this interest was so widely spread or was more intelligent.

The great number of journals devoted to botanical and kindred in-
vestigations, the increasing number of public botanic gardens and
private collections, the establishment of numerous agricultural schools
and agricultural experiment stations over the civilized world, testify
to the vast economic importance attached to the study of plants.
Some departments of this study, as e. ^., that of the diseases of
plants, have had an extraordinary development during the past few
years. As most of our native plants, with the exception of trees and
grasses, have little economic value, the interest that centers in them is
one arising from sentiment rather than from any other consideration.
And it will be admitted freely, I thiuk, that sentiment is a very pow-
erful factor in influencing conduct.

The child wanders through the lush grass in the meadows and fields
and fills its hands with the flowers of buttercup and daisy, or, in earlier
springtime, while the grass is yet upspringing, revels among broad
blue spaces of the bii-d-foot violet, and lays in its memory the founda-
tions of those palimpsests whose deciphering will be one of the
pleasures of later years. Among the pleasing memories of our early
years, when life is so full of wonders and the days and the years so
full of life, there are few more pleasing recollections than those of
the scenes which in some way are connected with the plants and
flowers that have left so deep an impression on our memories.

1895.] ESSAYS. 75

Perhaps behind the little school-house, where, in the seeming endless
summer days, we droned over the mysteries of the beginnings of
learning, while through the open door the sunlight streamed in and
the birds' songs came, and the multitudinous hum of insects, there
was an oak-grove. There in June days we used to find the purple
lady's slipper. This stands out distinct, vivid as lightning in a
summer night. There may have been others, but they have left no
impression. Yet the sight now of the purple lady's slipper sends the
memory back through the flight of years and fills the stage again with
its busy actors, and gives a special interest to this flower wherever
seen.

The sights and sounds of early youth have a glamour about them
which nothing in later years can destroy.

It is for this reason that emigrants love to carry with them to their
new homes on the other side of the world some of the plants and
animals associated with the old home. Froude tells us that in
New Zealand the sweet-brier was long ago imported by the English
missionaries, who liked to surround themselves with the pleasant
home associations.

There is no prettier picture in Charles Reade's " It is Never too
Late to Mend," than that of the thirty or forty rough fellows, mostly
gold-diggers, who have gathered on a Sunday morning at a squatter's
house to listen to a caged sky-lark.

"The song swelled his little throat and gushed from him with
thrilling force and plenty, and every time he checked his song to think
of its theme, the green meadows, the quiet, stealing streams, the
clover he first soared from, and the spring he sang so well, a loud sigh
from many a rough bosom, many a wild and wicked heart, told how
tight the listeners had held their breath to hear him ; and when he
swelled with song again, and poured with all his soul the green mead-
ows, the quiet brooks, the honey clover, and the English spring, the
rugged mouths opened and so stayed, and the shaggy lips trembled,
and more than one drop trickled from fierce unbridled hearts down
bronzed and rugged cheeks.

" And these shaggy men, full of oaths and strife and cupidity, had
once been light-headed boys and strolled about the fields with little
sisters, and little brothers, and seen the lark rise, and heard him sing
this very song. — And so for a moment or two, years of vice rolled
away like a dark cloud from the memory, and the past shone out in
the song-shine ; they came back, bright as the immortal notes that
lighted them, those faded pictures and those fleeted days; the clover
field, the cottage, the old mother's tears when he left her without one
grain of sorrow, the village church and its simple chimes ; and the
clover field again hard by in which he lay and gambolled, while the

76 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

lark praised God overhead ; the chubby playmates that never grew to
be wicked, the sweet hours of youth — and innocence — and home."

One never realizes how varied and abundant the local flora is until
some special opportunity or special interest leads him to investigate
carefully. Then, as the eye sees what it is trained to see or what it
is looking for, new and farther reaching vistas are constantly opening.
Even when the more conspicuous flowering plants ^re quite fully
known, there is a larger world of flowerless forms, such as ferns,
lichens, and fungi, and lower still, a world of algae, desmids, diatoms,
the portals of which we can enter only with the microscope, where the
forms are of exceeding beauty and the problems concerning life are
very enchanting. And just as the improvement in telescopes and in
methods of photography have shown the existence of many heavenly
bodies formerly invisible, it may be that we shall yet learn of vege-
table forms still more minute than any yet discovered in which some
of the mysteries that surround life may be made more plain.

The flora of Worcester County, so far as it has been recorded, con-
tains 1,098 species and varieties, of which 55 are ferns and their
allies. This is an addition of 286 during the last ten years. The
record is by no means complete ; in fact, such a record by the nature
of the case can hardly be made complete, owing to the constant addi-
tions, permanent or casual, which are made through the channels of
trade ; e. g., Galinsoga parviflora, Ruiz and Pavon, an immigrant from
South America, is making itself at home in various parts of the Uni-
ted States, among them our city and county. In the same way, one
of the hawkweeds, Hieracium mirantiacum, L., is becoming a pest on
lawns in Winchendon. And, again, there are some plants, native but
not abundant, at home in deep swamps, which have long escaped
notice. I had supposed that of the four species of Gaylussacia, or
huckleberry, described in Gray's Manual, only two could probably be
foimd in our county, the black huckleberry and the dangleberry, until
one day last June, a third species, the dwarf huckleberry, Gaylussacia
diimosa, Torrey and Gray, was brought to me from Northboro, where
it was reported to be quite abundant.

Dr. Bigelow in the third edition (1840) of his " Floruhi Bostoui-
ensis," mentions only one locality for it, in the edge of Richards'
Pond, Brookline ; and G. B. Emerson, in his now classic work on the
trees and shrubs of Massachusetts, refers to it as rare, and mentions
one locality, Manchester. Both of these authors put it in the genus
Vaccinivm, from whence it was transferred by Torrey and Gray to
GayhisHacia. It may be of some interest in this connection to recall

1895.] ESSAYS. 77

the fact that the ancestors of Asa Gray, the most distinguished
American botanist, were among the early settlers of Worcester. In
his autobiography he says: "My great-great-grandfather, John
Gray, with his family, among which was Robert Gray, supposed to be
one of his sons, emigrated from Londonderry, Ireland, to Worcester,
Mass., being a part of a Scotch-Irish colony. The farm they took up
was on the north side of what is now Lincoln Street." This was in
the year 1718, four years before the iucorporatiou of the settlement
as a town. Moses Wiley Gray, one of the grandsons of John Gray,
married in Worcester and afterwards moved to Terapleton, and later
to Oneida County, New York, where Asa Gray, one of the grandsons,
was born in 1810. In the early records of Worcester the name Gray
is of frequent occurrence.

The great order, Ericaceffi, or Heath family, to which the huckle-
berries already referred to belong, is well represented in our local
flora. Of the twenty-six genera described in the INIanual, which in-
cludes the district east of the Mississippi and north of North Caro-
lina and Tennessee, all but nine are represented in our flora; and of
the sixty-nine species, thirty-five are also found here. On some ac-
counts this is one of the most important families represented in our
flora.

It contains the two genera, Gaylussacia and Vaccinium, which yield
plentiful supplies of huckleberries, blueberries and cranberries, and
such genera as Kalraia and Rhododendron, which furnish some of our
handsomest shrubs.

One of the most interesting native plants of this order to me per-
sonally Is the Labrador Tea. I had known of it long before seeing
it. In Emerson's "Trees and Shrubs," I had seen his reference to
Hubbardston as one of its localities. One of my friends who had
landed on the coast of Greenland, where flowers of great delicacy
bloom at the foot of glaciers, had shown me sprays of it in leaf, but
without blossoms ; and at last another friend brings me some which
he had found growing naturally within three miles of this hall. It
must have been much more abundant formerly. Soon after the pas-
sage by Parliament of the famous act imposing a duty upon tea and
some other articles imported into the American colonies, a meeting
was held in Boston to take action concerning the use of such taxed
articles, and a resolution was passed to refrain from using them. The
execution of the resolution against tea required the aid of the female
part of the household. A female convention accordingly assembled
in Boston and agreed to discontinue the use of the taxed tea and to

78 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

substitute a native shrub, Labrador Tea, an inhabitant of the meadows
and swamps. The patriotic ladies of Worcester concurred in the
resolutions of the women of Boston. But there were royalist women
in Worcester who loved both their tea and their king, who had influ-
ence to cause these resolutions to be set aside. Lincoln's History of
Worcester gives the cause assigned for this action.

Another of the native plants which dates its name from that time
is the New Jersey Tea, Ceanothus Americanus, L., its name implying
its use. This, unlike the Labrador Tea, is quite abundant in our
neighborhood. It does not belong, however, to the Ericacese. The
water andromeda, Andromeda jjoUfoUa, L., is kindred in interest
with the Ledum. Andromeda is a famous name in classic poetry, in
art, in astronomy, as well as in botany. Her name may not just now
be on as many tongues as Trilby's, but it will probably survive longer.

The classic story of the beautiful maiden, Andromeda, chained to a
rock on the seashore to await the coming of the dreaded sea-monster
which will devour her, that so the sin of her mother may be expiated,
is as well known to the student of English literature as to the student
of Greek and Latin. There is no finer specimen of hexameters in
English poetry than Charles Kingsley's poem, Andromeda, or any
more interesting tale in Morris' Earthly Paradise than the " Doom of
King Acrisius," which contains the same story. But Andromeda was
rescued from this hard fate by Perseus, returning from his quest for
the head of the Gorgon, and he claimed her for his bride. The
astronomers transferred their names with those of her father and
mother, to groups of stars near each other in the northern sky. There,
whoever will look up on a clear night may see Andromeda spreading
her long white arms in the height of the oether, and near her are
Cepheus, her father, and Cassiopeia, sitting in her ivory chair as she
plaits ambrosial tresses. Linnaeus tells us that, as he contemplated
this lovely plant in the swamps of Lapland, the poetic legend filled
his mind and made the name seem most applicable. I have made
search and inquiry in all parts of the county, but Westborough is
the only town as yet where I have succeeded in locating it, and that
only last October.

Before that time its nearest habitat known to me was Whitehall
Pond in Hopkinton, which is just outside the line of our county. It
is one of the native shrubs which is well wortliy of cultivation, for its
intrinsic beauty both of flower and foliage. Who knows in wliat
grateful way it might repay the labor devoted to it?

Linnaeus raised to Peter Kalm, one of his favorite pupils, a monu-

1895.] ESSAYS. 79

ment more enduring than brass and nobler than the royal structure of
pyramids when he named for him the exclusively American genus,
Kalmia or laurel. The name of Kalm is thus preserved safe from the
effects of destructive storms or the flight of time. His fame cannot
wholly die so long as, all over the civilized world where the Kalmia
grows naturally or as an exotic, his name is perennnially upon men's
lips. In the whole of North America, north of Mexico, there are
but five species, three of which are abundant with us, the other two
being confined to lowlands along the coast from Virginia to Florida.
The pale laurel, Kalmia glauca, Ait., comes into bloom early and
escapes observation, except from those who are seeking it. It is
followed by the sheep laurel, K. angustifolia, L., and the mountain
laurel, K. latifolia, L., perhaps the most conspicuous flowering shrub
in June. Kalmia blossoms have a special adaptation for cross-fertiliz-
ation that is worthy of notice. In the flower-bud, each of the ten an-
thers is lodged in a small cavity, and the filaments are nearly straight ;
but when the saucer-shaped corolla is fully opened, these filaments
are curved outward and backward, resembling a curved spring. The
anthers, unless aided, cannot get out of those little cavities or shed
their pollen. Humble-bees in search of nectar, touch the filaments,
brush against them with sufticient force to dislodge the anthers, when
the filaments spring back with considerable energy and throw the
pollen from the two orifices at the apex of the anther cells. Some
pollen may be thrown in this way upon the single small stigma at the
tip of the style, but some of it is thrown upon the underside of the in-
sect's body, from which a part at least is brushed off upon the stigmas
of other flowers. Nature is most prodigal of pollen. She is profuse
in her expenditure of resources to accomplish her ends. In fair
weather we shall find few of the fully opened flowers that have not
been visited by some insert, as is shown by the now dislodged, in-
curved and relaxed stamens.

Our woods present no more charming sight than a path lined on
both sides with this handsome shrub in full flower.

I have now in my mind such a one. It should be seen on one of
the rare June days. Far off through the waving branches overhead
may be seen the pale blue sky, flecked here and there with a thin
streak of cloud ; butterflies are flitting slowy by ; the caw of a distant
crow, or the scream of a bluejay ngar at hand, or the twitter of the
smaller birds tell us of the bird life around ; and on each hand are
these beautiful pink or white flowers in such profusion that we
scarcely know which to pluck or which to leave behind.

80 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

Kalm dedicated to Dr. Gaulthier of Quebec a genus of plants which
embalms his memory, commonly called wiutergreen, or checkerberry,
or partridge-berry, or box-berry, but known to botanists as GauUheria
prociimbens, L. This, too, is a peculiarly American plant, and is
well known by its pleasant aromatic flavor, its shining evergreen
leaves, its delicate flowers, and its scarlet berries. It is very gen-
erally distributed throughout New England, where it can enjoy the
protection of evergreen as well as deciduous woods, and is about as
well known to young persons as any of our native plants, not except-
ing the trailing arbutus. This is, however, only one of eleven species
of low evergreens of this family which help to carpet the forest floor.
Besides it are the well-known trailing arbutus, the creeping snow-
berry, one of our rarest species, the bearberry, the two species of
chimaphila or pipsissewa, the four species of pyrola or wintergreen,
and the one Moneses or one-flowered pyrola, one of the daintiest of
its tribe.

A springtime would hardly seem like itself if we did not see in the
early days the fair, white racemes of the leather-leaf, Cassandra
calyculata, Don, mingling with the purple blossoms of Rhodora ; or
if, in the latter days of the spring, we did not see the fragrant and
charming LeucotJioe near by the pink azalea. Rhododendron nudi-
florum, Torr. The expansive beauty of the Rhododendron maximum
is meet for the tropic splendors of late June or early July.

We are proud of our representatives of this great order. This
pride does not prevent us from appreciating the beauty of the heath
or heather of Great Britain when it empurples the hills and the
moorlands.

Should it be our fortune ever to visit the Cape of Good Hope and
see its hundreds of forms belonging to this great family, we should
appreciate them the more from their kinship with our forms. The
exotics shall be partners with the natives in the great enterprise of
making the world better and brighter, of filling it with sweetness and
light. They should not be rivals. There is no need or place for
such rivalry. The world is wide enough for both, and better because
both are in it. May they both flourish !

In the early spring, while the hordes of insects are not yet astir,
but while the winds are never sleeping in their efforts to restore the
equilibrium of the atmosphere disturbed by the northward progress of
the sun, the wind-fertilized or anemophilous Mowers open. The nu-
merous catkins of the alders, hazels, birches, oaks, walnuts, butter-
nut, beech, sweet-fern, sweet-gale, bayberry, hornbeam and hop-

1895.] ESSAYS. 81

hornbeain, wliich were formed during the preceding summer, now
scatter tiieir fertilizing pollen freely and abundantly to the wooing
breezes. Such flowers lack the color and the perfume which render
so many insect-fertilized flowers so attractive. Not depending on the
visits of insects to secure fertilization, they do not need the attractive
charms which would bring them. They do need projecting stamens
laden with pollen, most of which may be wasted, but enough will
remain to accomplish the desired purpose. The fact that the leaves
of these trees and shrubs are not yet expanded, would seem to indi-
cate that Nature does not wish to interpose unnecessarily any obsta-
cle to the pollen on its journey to the waiting stigma. But the gen-
eral interest does not lie in such flowers as these which contain the
essential organs but lack a showy calyx or corolla.

Three or four flowers of spring seem to have most of the beauty of
the season wrapped up in themselves. What is more dainty than the
pale blue blooms of the hepatica, or more evanescent than the sepals
and petals of the blood-root, or more delicately fragrant than the pale
pink flowers of the trailing arbutus. To be seen at their best, how-
ever, they must be seen in their native haunts, beside the babbling
brook, among the lichen-covered bowlders, under the pines, but always
in the free, open air with the bright sky overhead. The spirit of
Emerson's little poem, "Each and All," enfolds them. They cannot
be separated from their natural environment without losing some of
their natural beauty.

In the deep woods, it may be, we shall find late in April the early
yellow violet, whose praise Bryant sang, probably at Cummington,
in the interval between the composition of those two matchless poems,
" Thanatopsis " and " Lines to a water-fowl." Near by it should be
seen the small yellow flowers of the yet leafless stems of the leather-
wood, Dirca jMlustris, L. The dog's tooth violet was the first flower
I was able to identify by a careful study of its structure. Till then
I cannot say that I had leally seen it, although since then I have
seen meadows all yellow with it. Perhaps my eyes had been before
like mirrors, which reflect the light and images of objects, but tiiem-
selves see nothing. I look for it now every spring. If I should not
see it, something would be wanting to the perfect charm of that
delightful season.

One of the shrubs or small trees which cannot fail to attract atten-
tion by its abundance in the yet leafless woods is the shad-bush or
June berry. Its numerous white flowers in drooping racemes are
then far seen and show the large number of individuals, which would

82 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

not be expected later in the season, when the other shrubs and trees
are in full leafage. With the shad-bush we associate the troop of
violets, five or six species of which may easily be found in the early
May days.

Not many of the earlier flowers of the year are classed among the
weeds. The weeds start early enough, but realizing that they have
all summer and autumn to ripen in, they do not hurry to bloom.
Perhaps they escape notice and many mishaps by lying low until the
more useful vegetation has attained a sufficient growth to overshadow
and protect them.

The most conspicuous weed of spring is the dandelion. Its mode
of growth is worth more than a passing notice. In the animal world
it would seem to imply a great deal of instinct or inherited memory,
or whatever we choose to call it. It opens its flowers at first on a
short scape or flower-stem, which lengthens during blossoming. After
all the flowers have been expanded long enough to ensure fertilization,
the inner involucre closes, and the cells on one side of the stem con-
tract, drawing it down almost to the ground. In this position the
fruit ripens, and at the same time the slender beak of the achenes elon-
gates, carrying up with it the crown of soft white hairs. When
everything is ready for the distribution of the fruit, the cells of the
stem expand, the stem stands erect, the involucre is reflexed, and the
achenes or seed-like fruits, with the pappus displayed in an open
globular head, are ready to be carried by the lightest wind to form
a colony away from the parent plant.

Within a week of each other, sometimes before the middle of May,
the shepherd's purse and the low spear grass will be found in bloom,
perhaps both close together. I look at them with an added interest
since I read Sir J. D. Hooker's "Himalayan Journals" a few years
ago. The following quotation contains one of the best expressions
of the delights of scientific travel, and that shall be my excuse for
quoting it in full.

He is writing under date of November 25th, 1848, on one of the
passes of the Himalayas in East Nepaul, at an elevation of 13,000
feet. He says: "Along the narrow path I found the two com-
monest of all British weeds, a grass (Poa annua) and the shepherd's
purse. They had evidently been imported by man and yaks, and as
they do not occur in India, I could not but regard these little wanderers
from the north with the deepest interest. Such incidents as these
give rise to trains of reflection in the mind of the naturalist traveller;
and the farther he may be from home and friends, the more wild and

1895.] ESSAYS. 83

desolate the country lie is exploring, the greater the difliculties and
dangers under which he encounters these subjects of his earliest
studies in science, so much keener the delight with which he recog-
nizes them, and the more lasting the impression which they leave.
At this moment these common weeds more vividly recall to me that
wild scene than does all my journal, and remind me how I went on
my way, taxing my memory for all it ever knew of the geographical
distribution of the shepherd's purse, and musing on the probability of
the plant having found its way thither over all Central Asia and the
ages that may have been occupied in its march."

- Every one familiar with the native flora must have similar, if not quite
as striking, experiences, if he has travelled far from home. Years
ago I found the enchanter's nightshade, Circaea aljnna, L., among
the rocks of "Purgatory" in Sutton. I had something of the feeling
expressed by Hooker, when I afterwards saw it growing in a similar
situation iu the "• Trossachs " in the Scotch Highlands.

Of the royal families of plants, those remarkable for their great
number of species, beauty or usefulness, such as the palms, the ferns,
the compound flowers, the grasses, the leguminous plants, we have
many representatives of all but the first. The palms, a tropical and
sub-tropical family, have no representative so far north of the Equa-
tor, although some species grow on the mountain-sides within the
tropics, which would seem to suggest an ability to adapt themselves
to a varied environment. While the ferns reach their greatest de-
velopment, both in size and in beauty, within the tropics or near by,
many of these beautiful genera have one or more representatives in
our own flora. In my friend's greenhouse I shall find quite a number
of species, delicate and graceful, of the large genus Adiantum. It
adds to my interest and pleasure in our one native species, the maiden
hair, to know that it belongs to so good a family. We will bear in
mind, too, that the exotic species which we find in cultivation are the
result of careful selection during a series of years of the species best
adapted for that purpose. If we can liave only one species of climb-
ing fern (Lygodium) , we are thankful for that, and sorry for our neigh-
bors farther north who are denied this privilege. We have some-
thing of the best there is along nearly every line.

To a native of the tropics the palm family is undoubtedly the. royal
family. To a native of the Temperate regions the grass family has
the same high rank. No family of plants contributes so much to give
a pleasing aspect to the landscape. Each of the grand divisions of
the world has its large characteristic grassy plains, the prairies of the

84 WORCESTER COUNTY HOETJCULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

Mississippi valley, the pampas of South America, the steppes of
Europe and Asia and the similar lauds of Africa and Australia.

No other family has greater economic value. Through centuries of
cultivation, some of them have been developed into the staple food-
plants of the world. The teeming millions of southeastern Asia
cannot starve so long as the sugar-cane, rice aud bamboo flourish ;
nor the teeming millions of P^urope or Araeiica so long as the earth
brings forth its bountiful harvests of wheat, corn, rye, oats, barley
and fodder grasses.

Most of the cultivated grasses are natives of the Old World, but
are widely scattered over the New. The New World in return, has
given some gifts to the Old, the greatest of which is maize. Culti-
vated in the United States, over nearly 80,000,000 acres, it is the
largest arable crop grown in any country, the crop of a single year iu
measured quantity exceeding the entire wheat crop of the whole world.
What more fitting floral emblem for the great Republic than this
kingly plant whose grain is of the color of gold, which is grown to
some extent, in every State and Territory in our Union, and in
almost every county in which agriculture is carried on ! The grass
family is probably the most widely diffused over all the habitable
parts of the globe, reaching the outposts of flowering plants, both
in the polar regions and near the snow-line on high mountains.
About 3,500 species have been already discovered and described, of
which about 700 are found in the United States, and 80 in our
Worcester County. In the early history of this country, particularly
in the northern States, while the settlements were scattered, the native
grasses and tlie natural pasturage were sufficient for the needs
of the population. Afterwaids, grasses well adapted for culti-
vation were imported from the mother country, and now cover large
areas. Nearly a thiid of our grasses have been introduced, some by
design, some by accident; all are naturalized. The humbler grasses
may be proud of their noble kinship and of their family reputation.
There are few weeds among the grasses. Some of the grasses
are valued for ornament.

Quaking-grass, Briza media, L., with its showy drooping spikelets
on delicate pedicels, is an ornament to many an upland meadow ; oat-
grass pleases with its slender drooping panicle ; velvet grass attracts
attention by its pale color and soft downy ai)pearance, and Brachyely-
trum ari.'<tatum, which has no common name that I know, probably
because it is native and largely unob.served by the common people,
who give common things a common name, will long help to decorate
the margin of rocky woods.

1895.] ESSAYS. 85

I think that formerly, the native plants, or rather those growing
wild, were better known by most people than now. The development
of civilization has a tendency to gather people together in constantly
enlarging communities, where the competition of business life absorbs
most of the attention ; but a stronger reason, probably, is the change
constantly going on in medical practice. In olden times, there
existed a real and sincere art of healing, which rested mainly upon
the knowledge of herbs. There was some quackery which attached
itself to the genuine art, false notions which had powerful effects.
Mineral and chemical remedies are comparatively modern. The
vocabulary of our language proves this. The term drug is from the
Anglo Saxon clrigan, to dry. The first drugs were dried herbs ; so
that the study of plants naturally was identified with medicine by
long tradition. Whqn, in the 16th century, the chief cities of Europe
established gardens for the study of plants, these gardens were called
Physic Gardens, a name not long extinct.

Our flora contains a number of plants which have had more or less
repute. The first ship loaded from what is now Massachusetts,
carried to England a load of sassafras. In the list of our plants of
this character we may include the liverleaf or hepatica, meadow rue,
goldthread, barberry, pappoose-root, blood-root, violets, mallow,
toothache tree, buckthorn, agrimony, hamamelis, caraway, ginseng,
fever-wort, thoroughwort (a satisfactory and suggestive name),
elecampane, yarrow, wormwood, coltsfoot, chiccory, lobelia, Indian
hemp, vervain, pennyroyal, catnip, motherwort, self-heal, plantain,
slippery elm, — but I cannot exhaust the list. Some of these are
native, some naturalized, but now fully at home.

In our great number of species there are many that are beautiful
and worthy of cultivation. Some of them are sought for this pur-
pose in Europe. It is natural that the common should appear to
have less value than the rare or exotic.

It is the fate which plants share in common with all objects of
human consideration. But on that account our local flora is not the
less worthy of a share of our interest ; it will, in fact, enlarge our
interest in the exotic flora of the greenhouse and in the botany of
the world as a whole. The material for such study is abundant and
cheap. There will always be some people who will appreciate it
fully.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. Draper. I feel as if I was stepping upon unfamiliar ground
in trying to enter into a discussion which this paper would naturally
7

86 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

suggest, but I wish here and now to voice my appreciation of the
work that Mr. Jackson has done for the botanical interest and educa-
tion of the City of Worcester.

We have not forgotten his work rendered here several years ago,
nor his first published list of the Flora of Worcester County. And
now he comes forward and adds to this work, standard works, few of
which are published in our cities.

A person who is not conversant with botanical knowledge, can at
the proper seasons familiarize herself or himself with a great deal of
the natural flora of our vicinity. And I, for one, certainly appreciate
and voice the sentiment of all true lovers of nature.

I think Mr. Jackson must feel to-day that, for an inclement day,
his audience shows their appreciation of his work already rendered,
and the things shown in his paper. But you and I, Mr. President,
notice here familiar faces that are constant attendants at our discus-
sions on other themes. I am confident that there are others here who
are far more deeply interested in this subject than the one who is now
addressing you, and who, from early spring to late fall, are looking
out and finding in their favorite botanical recesses, these little flowers
and plants that have been described.

I claim that I have not the ability to draw these young ladies into
the pleasant conversation and discussion as if they were in the class-
room with Miss Tucker. I wish it were possible now that the meet-
ing might take up an informal matter, and that they might question
our speaker in an informal way and get the fullest benefit of the
meeting, by discussing the native flora of this section.

Mr. Jackson. I want to give one illustration of the way in which
a person gets acquainted with the native flora. Some dozen yeais
ago a list of the plants I wanted to preserve was printed in the Spy,
as often as they amounted to fifty.

A physician in this city, in very active practice, who had preserved
the whole set, showed me one of those slips that he had cut out of
the paper, and said that when the proper time came he would take
out the proper slip for the season, and as he rode along through the
country and saw a flower he was not familiar with, he would take out
the slip, and by noting the day of the month he could in a great
many cases tell what flower he had got, by seeing how near it was to
the description on the paper, as he had not time enough to spare to
analyze the plant. He said that he made out a great many of them
by doing so. I think it adds very much to our interest in plants to
see what somebody else thinks about them.

1895.] ESSAYS. 87

Inquirer. I would like to inquire what the Professor means by
" upland meadow "? "I mean what is sometimes called pasture."

" I never found any Quaking Grass on high land ; I have only seen
it in low land, where it is damp and moist."

Chairman. It is unfortunate for the chair that he does not know
some of the faces that are present, who could tell us something. I
hope that they will have something to say without being called upon.

Dr. Hodge. I don't know whether I belong here or not, but I will
try to make a few remarks. I am exceedingly glad to have the
opportunity to thank Mr. Jackson for the book which I have read
with so much interest this winter, and I encore Mr. Draper's remark
on getting out a book of that kind. When your President called for
a botanist I certainly could not respond, and I am very sorry for it,
but there are not very man}' botanists in the country that I know of,
and whether the fault is in the way that we are trained in the schools,
or whether the fault is in ourselves I won't stop to say. But I look
upon this movement which Mr. Jackson has been forwarding in
Worcester as one which gives to my mind the greatest hope of
making everybody a botanist, and advancing to them the knowledge
of the flowers and plants that they are treading on every day.

I remember the first time that I ever saw Kalmia. It was after I
came to Baltimore for the purpose of finishing my university course,
and the people there said I ought to go out and see the mountain
laurel, and told me the place where I could find it. I don't think I
was ever more surprised. I went out into the woods in the suburbs
of Baltimore, and simply forgot all about lectures, laboratories, and
life in general. I have often wondered why we don't have more of it
in our gardens and walks. It is a beautiful bush. The specimens
we see in the pastures are torn by the cattle and the boys.

It seems to me that we go a great way for shrubbery, which in the
point of interest does not come within miles and miles of our native
flora.

There is another meaning to the botanical movement which Mr.
Jackson has made here, and that is, that the commonplace common
things, if we only stop and look at them, are often in reality the
most beautiful things we can find in the flora ; and the fact that they
are common, if our attention is not called to them in some such way,
makes us overlook them. If we would only stop and look at them,
we should see beauty in them which would make life have a greater
meaning, instead of our simply passing over everything in the world
about us.

88 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, [1895.

I wish to thank Mr. Jackson again for the talk this afternoon, and
the book he has written.

Chairman. Speaking of the common mountain laurel, I have per-
haps a hundred plants which have been transplanted mostly from the
woods and pastures, and I have not yet made up my mind that I
know fully how to grow them well. But I am on the road ; and if I
should live a few years longer, I should be able to cultivate the laurel
with success. I have some also which were imported ; I don't mean
come from foreign countries. Of course I would have to have some
that were imported, and they seem to thrive well. I don't seem to
see much difference in the bloom. I was in hopes of getting some of
higher color than our native laurel, but I don't see much difference in
the bloom ; they are full of blossoms in their seasons, more so than
the wild ones. It is a plant which, I think, gives the best effect in
the winter season, when we see the leaves under the snow. It has a
leaf that does not die or wither in the winter season, and I think
there is no plant that is so generally overlooked, because, I suppose,
it is so common that it is not thought worthy of cultivation,, and
almost everyone can adorn his grounds and premises with laurel with
very little care.

There is another plant Mr. Jackson has spoken of, and which I
take a little pride in, and that is blood-root, and probably I can show
a larger cultivation of blood-root than anyone in the Commonwealth ;
not that I can give myself any credit for it, for it comes up spon-
taneously. When it is in bloom, there is nothing on the premises
that shows off as well. I have cultivated nearly one-half acre of it.

Inquirer. Have you ever cultivated any Andromeda?

1 have four varieties which give me a great deal of pleasure. It
thrives well on high ground, and it has a beautiful leaf, so white on the
under side.

Inquirer. I would like to inquire the general appearance of the
laurel when it is cultivated ?

When the laurel is in its best condition, it not only has a large leaf,
but the perfume is very profuse ; much more so than when we see
it in its wild state.

From the Audience. Jfr. President^ — I am aware that you are
somewhat abashed by the array of young ladies before you, and you
have not discovered the presence of the botanist, — the teacher at the
Normal School.

Miss Tucker. I can only say, that I have enjoyed very much listen-
ing to Mr. Jackson ; and I fully agree with him in his defending the

1895.] ESSAYS. 89

native shrubs as well as the trees for cultivation. I have made great
use of Mr. Jackson's list of the plants of the county, for several
years past, and I feel greatly indebted to him for his contribution to
us in the works of that kind, and I think as all the rest of you do.

Mr. Watts. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, — There is
one thing my attention was called to in the essay, and that was, when
he made the remark that people at present don't seem to understand
as much about the flora of the country as the people of the old times
did ; and he accounted for it in the way that they used those herbs for
medicines and for medicinal purposes.

Indeed, I can well remember that about thirty or forty years ago it
was my lot to be cast with some of those older people, and my recollec-
tion dates back to that time. And, now, when I find any particular plant
that I cannot remember the name of, as the older people used to give
it, as soon as I can find out the common name of it, I turn to the
botany, and there discover its proper botanical name.

It is very interesting to note in regard to common names, that if
there is any particular common name for a flower in one part of the
country, other parts of the country will call it by another ; and I tell
my children to impress these names on their minds, and then it is
easy to turn to the works of the botanist and discover the technical
name.

I remember once one of the ministers of Cherry Valley drove up to
my house, and picked some flowers. The children he had with him
were studying botany, and when he rode up to the house, he called my
attention to a flower and asked me if I knew what it was. I told him
" yes." He said, " AVhat do you call it? " I said, " I call it ground-
nut. Do you want anything more?" He said, "I would like the
botanical name?" I turned to Gray's Botany and looked it over, and
found that ground-nut proved to be Aralia. He said that he had
never been able to find anyone that could tell him the name before.

My boy picked up some specimens in our neighborhood, and carried
them up to the Academy, and the teacher who was teaching botany
there could not tell him the name of it. The boy knew it was wild
ginger and there was no reason why he (the Prof.) should not know
what it was. He analyzed it, and discovered what it was. It is only
those who have hunted for wild ginger particularly, who would know
what it was. There is no one here probably, who has ever seen the
blossom of it.

I believe in these discussions, and the bringing out of these ideas,
so as to make it interesting to the people. They must keep their eyes
and ears open and hear what is said, and then retain it.

90 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

Mr. Jackson. I think there is one drawback in the minds of a great
many people who study botany, and that is the difficulty they find in
learning the hard names.

When I started in on the subject, I found that I could learn only
one at a time, but after a while I had a long list of them. I took in-
terest in the plants and remembered them merely because I wanted
the botanical names, and could therefore retain them. The botanical
names are not so hard as to discourage anyone. The shorter names
are not so hard but that children learn them. One of the first things
one wants to know in the study of botany, is the name of the plant
he has in mind, just the same as he wants to know the names of the
people he meets. He takes an added interest in every one whose
name he knows, especially if it is a well-known name. People some-
times think they cannot learn the names themselves, and therefore
discourage others. It is a very simple subject after a time.

28th February, A. D. 1895.

ESSAY

BY

BURTON W. POTTER, Esq., Worcester, Mass.
Theme : — Forestry Preservation.

A SUCCESSION of several dry seasons makes people begin to speculate
ou the cause thereof. Some say there have always been droughts and
water famines, and there always will be, do what we may. Others
say they are made by man and not by nature, and therefore they may
be prevented by human action. Providence is frequently held account-
able for many things it is not in the least to blame for. "We some-
times bring sickness, disease, and poverty upon ourselves by the viola-
tion of the ordinary and well-known rules of health and economy,
and then as an excuse for our misconduct and laziness we attribute
such calamity to a visitation of God. Sickness is always with us ; but
that does not excuse us from trying to live in accordance with the laws
of health, in order that we may burn out and not be snuffed out.
The poor we have with us always ; but that is no reason why we should
not strive for good laws and right living, in order that the number of
the poor may be as few as possible. God is not responsible for
results in human life until we have exerted, to a reasonable extent,
every moral, mental, and physical faculty at our command. When
the experiences of ages teach us that the proper condition of the
climate, soil, and atmosphere depends upon the right proportion of
forests to arable land, we should be careful not to disturb the equilib-
rium by cutting off too much of our forests. The best scientific
authorities maintain that nearly every country needs to be covered by
forests over at least one-quarter of its surface. It is a well-estab-
lished fact that the amount of rainfall in a country depends, in great
measure, upon the area covered by forests in that country. There are
some parts of the earth that used to have a fertile soil, a moist
climate, and streams always full, but seldom swelling to disastrous

92 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

floods, which are now dry and barren, with infrequent rains and dusty
river channels, along which, after a rare storm, impetuous torrents
rush with destructive force for a short time, and then dwindle rapidly
and soon disappear, leaving the stream-beds as dry as before.

Those regions, in the days of their happy estate, were well wooded;
while now, in the days of their desolation, they are almost destitute of
forests.

In ancient times Syria and the Holy Land, and all the region on
the southern shores of the Mediterranean, from the River Nile to the
Straits of Gibraltar, were fertile and well- wooded countries ; the very
garden territories of the earth. The hills were clothed with groves of
olive, sycamore, cedar, and palm trees. The low lands produced, in
rich abundance, wheat, barley, figs, pomegranates, milk, and honey.
Everywhere springs gushed forth from the well-watered soil, and
brooks and rivers flowed through the valleys. In those early days a
teeming population flourished upon the productions of the soil, and
carried their civilization into the surrounding countries. But now the
hillsides are no longer covered with forests, and exhibit bare and pre-
cipitous rocks, while dusty and burned-up soil covers the low lands,
where frequently not a vestige of vegetable or animal life can be seen
for hundreds of miles around.

When the tree-hating Arabs and Moors overran these countries,
they cut down and burned up nearly all the trees then standing, and
thereby produced a change in climate and atmosphere which has made
this primitive garden soil a desolate waste.

But the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean are not
the only places which have suffered by the destruction of forests.
Everywhere, the world over, the greed of men, when unrestrained by
law, has cut down the forests without stopping to consider the conse-
quences. And many tracts of land which were formerly partially
covered with stately forests, and where the soil was well watered and
fertile, are now almost arid wastes. Austria, as a whole, is a well-
wooded country ; but its shore provinces around the Adriatic Sea are
almost denuded of forests, and the land is little better than a desert.
In ancient times the hardwood timber of these provinces supplied the
Romans with materials for their ships and buildings ; and at a later
day this timber, in large quantities, was used for ship-building and
pile foundations in Venice, when she was in her glory and queen of
the seas ; and in the sixteeutii and seventeenth ceutui'ies the merchants
of Holland and England purchased and carried away the rest of it.
After the forests had disappeared the native inhabitants dug up the

1895.] ESSAYS. 93

stumps and" roots for firewood, and grazed the treeless land with sheep
and goats, until there was not a vestige of forest growth on the plains
and hillsides of a once beautiful country. The climate, which was
naturally mild and temperate, became changeable and unreliable, land-
slides and avalanches became common, the mountain brooks dried up,
and the rivers became shallow. The whole face of the country was
changed from its former rich and fruitful condition to sterile plains,
interspersed with stony and parched hillsides, populated with half-
starved sheep and goats, and poor farmers.

Mauritius, in 1864 and before, was a mass of verdure, and was
called the "pearl" of the Indian Ocean. The forests were cut off to
gain space for sugar plantations, and then the rainfall diminished.
The rivers and brooks dwindled down to muddy streams or dried-up
basins ; the water became stagnant in cracks, crevices, and natural
hollows, while the equable temperature of the island entirely changed ;
drought was experienced in the midst of the ocean, and thunder-
showers were rarely any longer witnessed. The lagoons, marshes, and
swamps along the seaboard were no longer filled with water, but gave
off noxious gases ; while the river water became impure from various
refuse.

To remedy this evil the Government caused the mountains and hills
to be again covered with planted trees, and the rivers and streams
resumed their former dimensions.

I might go on and show how the destruction of forests has injured
the soil and climate of Spain, Southern France, India, and other
places ; but it is unnecessary to accumulate evidence on this point, for
it is doubtful whether the earth itself would be habitable for man were
it not for trees and forests. Unprotected by the shade of trees and
the humidity arising therefrom, the scorching rays of the sun would
be hard for him to bear. The air, unpurified by the process of tree
growth, would be poisonous to him. The cold blasts of winter,
unchecked by forest barriers, sweeping over the hills and through the
valleys as water pours over a dam or through a sluiceway, would chill
the life blood of the most vigorous, and sweep the entire race from
the planet. *

The rulers of the most enlightened governments have long felt that
the preservation of a reasonable amount of forests is necessary for the
increase of national wealth, the maintenance of a water supply, the
equability of the climate, and the fertility of the soil. Nearly every
government in Europe is now making laudable efforts to reclaim all
unfruitful land by planting the rocky hillsides, the sandy dunes, and

94 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

the barren plains, with millions of young trees. Countless millions
of young trees have been furnished gratis to the inhabitants of these
desolate regions for planting, and experiment stations have been
established at all central points for the raising of trees adapted to the
climate and soil of those localities. When the people have been found
indifferent to their true interest in this regard, they have been required
by law to work a certain number of days each year in planting trees
on land condemned and taken for that purpose, or to contribute an
equivalent in money, to be used by the official foresters in the same
work. But to the credit of humanity in modern life, be it said, a
great many communities have taken hold of this work with zeal and
energy, and much has been done to reclaim waste land and cover it
again with trees of the best species. All this has a tendency to bring
into re-existence, as it were, land which has seen better days ; and
every acre of land thus recovered secures to mankind increased happi-
ness and sustenance upon the earth. It means new roads and cities
to build, new farms to cultivate, harbors and rivers to improve and fit
for navigation, schools to establish, and wood and timber to use in the
erection of new dwellings, and the enlargement of warmth and com-
fort in those dwellings. Man, and not nature, made this waste soil to
lie fallow for centuries, and now it is the duty of man to reclaim and
rejuvenate it by replanting it with forest trees, and thereby restoring it
to its primitive beauty and productiveness.

Without giving in detail the forestry laws of the different European
nations, I will briefly state the general purport and scope of those laws
and the measures the governments adopt to secure their wise and faith-
ful execution. It is the aim of the governments to have about one-
fourth of the entire area of the country covered with forests. There
are three kinds of forests, — State, communal, and private ; but the
governments exercise full control over them all.

Pasturage is not allowed in the State forests, but sometimes hogs
properly guarded are admitted for the purpose of destroying insects and
their eggs. Poor folks, living in the vicinity, are generally permitted
to gather and carry away for their own use, without charge, the dead
branches, and the brushwood which remains unused when timber is cut
for the market. They are also allowed to pick the berries and harvest
the mushrooms. The people at large are allowed to frequent the State
and communal forests, and to hold picnics therein, subject to the rules
and regulations prescribed by the proper authorities. At certain sea-
sons of the year portions of them are leased for hunting-grounds to
individuals or societies, who are required to pay a fair compensation

1895.] ESSAYS. 95

for this privilege. When the trees are large enough for timber, they
are cut under the direction of the official foresters, and the wood and
timber is used by the State or the commune so far as needed, and the
remainder is sold at market prices.

Sometimes fruit trees ai'e planted in the forests and along the public
roads, and the nuts and fruit thus raised are sold for the benefit of the
State or the commune. The forest revenues are usually much larger
than the forest expenses, and the surplus is applied to the repair of the
highways or other public improvements.

The private owners of forests are allowed to occupy and manage
them under prescribed rules and regulations, and to receive all the in-
come therefrom ; but they have to be very careful not to commit any
trespass on their own land. They are not allowed to cut down their
forests, wholly ; and they must cultivate them in a manner not to en-
danger their growth or destruction. Sheep and goats must not be
pastured therein, nor cattle, until the trees are of good size. The
oldest trees and those most fully developed must be cut first, and
sometimes an official forester must designate the trees which the owner
is allowed to cut down. Barren spots and all unnecessary paths and
gullies must be planted with suitable trees. The felling of trees must
be in such a manner as to cause as little damage as possible to young
growths or neighboring trees.

The supervision of all the forests of the State, the commune and
private owners is entrusted to official foresters, who are appointed by
the State and educated at forestry schools.

In addition to the forest laws, nearly every country in Europe has
forestry schools in which exact knowledge of all branches of the
science of forestry are taught. The special studies are zoology, botany,
mineralogy, geology, physics, chemistry, climatology, the history of
forests and their uses, tree culture and forest management, agriculture
and political economy, road building, and the civil law relative to
forest, hunting and fishing rights. All the official foresters are grad-
uates of these schools, and they also serve an apprenticeship in the
care and management of forests before they are entrusted with full
forestry responsibilities.

These forestry laws and schools have been instrumental in preserv-
ing and increasing the forests of Europe. There for the past fifty
years the forest acreage has been gradually increasing, until in many
places one-fourth of the surface of the earth is covered by woods ;
while here there has been a constant and rapid decrease in our wood-
land area. Our census statistics show that some four million acres of

96 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

woodland disappear in this country every year, and that at the present
rate of consumption our marketable lumber supply will be exhausted
in fifty years.

It is not likely that the American people will allow their lumber sup-
ply to be entirely exhausted before they take some measures to cheek
the wasteful destruction of their timber land ; and then, too, the de-
mand will grow less in the advancing years, as stone, brick, iron, and
steel will undoubtedly take the place of wood to a large extent in the
construction of buildings.

Nevertheless, for many years to come, the demand for lumber in
this prosperous and growing country will be great ; and unless some-
thing is done to preserve our forests, they will be cut off too rapidly
for the best interests of the country. Already our rivers and creeks
are dwindling in size, our summers are becoming drier, and our water
supplies more difficult to obtain, and our manufacturing industries are
compelled to resort more and more to steam and reservoirs for power
to turn the wheels of their machinery.

These things are directing our attention to a more careful consider-
ation of the uses and advantages of forests. Their existence and de-
velopment are now recognized as important in the matcu'ial world as
money in the economic world. Their influence upon the climate and
atmosphere is immense, though of such a quiet nature that it generally
escapes our observation. They are reservoirs of water from which the
atmosphere above and the ground below are constantly drawing mois-
ture, and thereby the climate is made more equable and humid. They
serve the double purpose, — of windmills to pump the water in the soil
up into the atmosphere, when it is dispersed ; and to retain it in the soil
by their roots and their leafy moulds, where it is allowed to pass off
gradually into the springs and brooks. It is one of the wonderful
provisions of nature that every growing tree helps to purify the air we
breathe. Vegetation lives and thrives on the carbonic acid and other
ingredients in the atmosphere which are poisonous and injurious to
animal life, and it has the happy faculty of working over these poisons
and issuing in the place thereof pure oxygen, which is the most life-
giving food for man and beast. When impure air passes through a
forest, it comes out purer, if not wholly purified. In Italy and other
places, towns wliich formerly were so unhealthy that nobody could
safely live in them during certain seasons of the year, have become
wholesome and pleasant places to live in owing to the planting of for-
ests near them. And no doubt tlie destruction of forests has caused
many places to become uninhabitable which in ancient times wore the
healthy and happy abodes of human beings.

1895.] ESSAYS. 97

A forest fertilizes and reinvigorates the earth. The roots penetrate
the soil and thereby let in the air and water, while the deposit of
leaves and branches enriches the ground and keeps it warm in winter
and cool in summer. A hill unprotected by trees will soon lose its
soil, unless frequently supplied with some fertilizing material to take
the place of the soil which is washed away by every rain. And such
is the renovating influence of a forest upon the soil, that a piece of
worn-out land will become again virgin soil after it has been under
cover of trees for a generation or two.

Trees also serve as conductors of electricity between the clouds and
the earth, and cause the clouds to discharge their contents upon the
earth. A thunder-cloud will pass unbroken over a barren and tree-
less hill, as if not deigning to notice or refresh such an unlovely
thing, while it will pour down the cooling moisture of heaven, if its
electricity is drawn off by a few tree conductors. It is well-known
that the most fertile soil will not produce vegetable growth unless it
is saturated with water either from the clouds or reservoirs ; and
inasmuch as the reservoirs themselves are largely supplied by rain-
fall, it becomes evident that an abundant rainfall is necessary for
agricultural purposes in nearly all countries. Then, if trees are con-
ducive to rainfall, they are as indispensable to man in the production
of his food as in the purification of the air he breathes.

Forests are useful to the farmer, the horticulturist, and the stock-
raiser. A forest, or even a cluster of trees when rightl}' situated, is
a great protection to farm-buildings, fruit and grain fields, and pasture
lands. When horses, cattle, and sheep have an opportunity, they
will always seek shelter on the leeward side of trees on every cold
and stormy day, and on the shady side every hot and sunshiny day.
When stock is pastured out through the season, either in the East or
the West, mercy as well as economy requires forest shelter for them.

Then again there is beauty as well utility in trees. They greatly
enhance the beauties of a country, and no country can be beautiful in
the highest degree without them. If the green hills and mountains of
New England were stripped of their woods, the lovers of natural
scenery and rural life would seek elsewhere the gratification of their
tastes.

A lake or stream fringed with trees is more beautiful than a treeless
one. A few sheltering trees wisely distributed upon a hill gives it
added beauty and picturesqueness, even when its sides are verdant
with green grass or covered with waving grain. Such a hill is
always a beautiful object, and one which harmonizes exceedingly well

98 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

with a cultivated country round about. Ou the other hand, a bare
and rocky hill suggests images of bleak and barren desolation, cold
blasts, and parching sun. In fine, were it not for trees would there be
much beauty in mountain, hill, or valley? For who can conceive of a
beautiful landscape scene devoid of trees?

Now, if forests are so essential from every standpoint, what can
and ought to be done for their growth and preservation? Happily
in this part of the country nothing need be done for their growth
except to give them a fair chance ; for they spring up spontaneously,
and grow with vigor in our valleys, and on our mountain and hill sides.
But on the prairies of the West, where they are needed most, they
have to be planted and tended for years in order to secure their growth
and continuance. Under the delegated powers to the general govern-
ment it is doubtful whether it has any authority to make forestry laws
for the States, although it is charged with the duty " to provide for the
general welfare of the United States." It has, however, without ques-
tion, the right to preserve all the timber land on the public domain.
There are now over three million acres in our great national parks, and
about eighteen million in our national forest reservations. And intel-
ligent measures should be taken to withdraw from the market all such
public forest lands as are necessary to supply the head waters of the
great lakes and rivers of the country. And efficient measures should
also be taken to safely guard and suitably manage the forests belong-
ing to the nation. The principles of forestry should be taught at
West Point, or in a separate school of forestry ; and the public forests
and parks should be placed under the guardianship of the United
States Army, or of trained foresters under the control of some depart-
ment of the general government. If properly managed they could be
made a source of large income to the government, and reservoirs of
fertility to agricultural land, of water supply to rivers and lakes, and
of health and protection to people and their domestic animals.

I^ut while the national parks and forests are now, and will be more
so in the future, of vast importance in the economy of the nation, yet
und(u- our system of government the main work of preserving and
managing our forests will have to be performed by our State govern-
ments. Several of the States have already taken steps to foster the
growth and preservation of their forests. Maine has enacted a good
forest-fire law, and New Hampshire, New York, and Pennsylvania
have established forestry commissions to examine into the condition
of all forest covers, and to formulate plans and recommendation for
future legislative action. By the new constitution of New York, no

1895.] ESSAYS. 99

more of the State forests are to be sold or exchanged. A National
Forestry Association has been formed which has lield several inter-
esting and instructive conventions in different parts of the country.
Many local forestry societies have also been organized which have
done much in bringing about correct opinions on forestry matters. In
Massachusetts the Legislature has incorporated the Trustees for Public
Reservations, and in New Jersey Governor Werts, in a recent message
to the Legislature of that State, recommends the appointment of a
commission empowered to receive and hold any land or place they
may deem to be worthy of reservation for public use. An act for a
similar purpose is now pending in the New York Legislature. And
thus by degrees a public opinion is being formed, which realizes that
the hallowed places and the natural beauties of a country are worth
preservation, and can be put to higher uses than those which are
merely commercial. And in due time let us hope public opinion will
become intelligent enough to warrant the enactment and enforcement
of State laws allowing the confiscation of private land by eminent
domain for forest reservations, or providing for the proper use and
management of forests by their owners. A law requiring the owners
of woodland to manage it in accordance with the principles of good
forestry, may at first seem contrary to the long accepted opinions in
this country and Great Britain, that the owners of land are entitled
to the absolute and unlimited control of it. But in Great Britain this
ancient doctrine is becoming impaired, by the enactment of laws
requiring the owners of factories and buildings to provide them with
fire-escapes and good sanitary arrangements ; of laws allowing the
courts to regulate and fix the rent of real estate between landlord and
tenant ; and of laws permitting municipalities to appropriate old build-
ings for the purpose of erecting in place thereof model tenement-
houses.

And in this country the tendency of the law is to make the owner of
real estate hold it as a trustee for society at large. He is not per-
mitted to create, or allow anything like a private or a public nuisance
on his premises. He is liable to have it flowed against his consent for
mill or factory purposes. It may be taken from him upon fair com-
pensation for a park or a cemetery, for a highway or a railroad, for
a reservoir or a sewage farm, for a post-office or a school-house, or
for some other public use.

The belief is becoming quite general that society treats one of its
members very generously, when it allows him to fence in a certain por-
tion of the earth's surface, and say to everybody, " keep oft'; this is

100 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

mine ; I can occupy it exclusively while I live and dispose of it by
will when I am dead." But when he seeks to go still further and con-
tends that he has the right to use it in a way that is detrimental to the
public good, if he sees fit so to do, he is trenching unduly upon the
rights of society ; for surely the earth belongs to the race rather than to
individuals, and society has the right to regulate and prescribe the
terms and conditions upon which individuals shall occupy certain por-
tions of it. There is no more hai'dship in requiring the owners of
woodland to manage it in accordance with the principles of good for-
estry than there is in requiring tenants of agricultural land to carry it
on in accordance with the principles of good husbandry. In the long
run, it would be beneficial to the owners of woodland to be compelled
by law to observe rational forestry rules in its management.

It is not likely, however, that we shall have immediately State for-
estry laws ; but it is the immediate duty of every patriotic and intelli-
gent citizen to inculcate right sentiments on the subject, and to
encourage the proper treatment of forest land. The wise treatment of
woodlands is already a practical and important question. Should the
cutting be clean or partial? When the trees are of a uniform size and
of a species that will sprout from the root, and of a kind chiefly valu-
able for fuel, there would seem to be no objection to clean work ; but
when the trees are valuable for timber and in various stages of growth,
it would seem to be better to cut out the ripe ones by degrees, in such a
way as not to injure those remaining, but rather to increase their growth
by giving them more room and light. If the trees are thicker than
they can grow to maturity, or to a size suitable for timber, then the
inferior ones should be removed, in order that the remainder may have
the entire nourishment of the soil and a monopoly of the sun and air.

Forestry should be taught in colleges, and especially in the agricul-
tural schools ; and the love of trees should be instilled into every
human heart. Multitudes of modern people seem to find great satis-
faction in wild and grand scenes by the seashore and in the mountains,
who apparently find no delight in the scenic beauty of the woods and
the landscapes of their evei'y-day life. But the true lover of nature
sees beauty in the common things around him. He finds tongues in
trees, and is able to read a lesson in the lily of the field, the grass on
the greensward, and the leaf on the tree.

In order that people may be educated to love trees and forests, let
village and rural improvement societies be nniltiplied ; let Arbor Days
be well observed and utilized ; let public parks be established where the
masses can find outing ground for pleasure and recreation ; and let

1895.] ESSAYS. 101

every fanner be persuaded that he can use his rough and waste laud
for uo better purpose than for the growth of trees. ]\Iuch of our soil
is unfit for pasturage or cultivation, which would raise forests, and
thereby would pi'oduce something of use to coming generations. It
has been said that he who makes two blades of grass grow where only
one grew before is a benefactor of his race ; and of all the pursuits
connected with the interests of mankind, what can be the source of
more true and disinterested happiness than the knowledge that one has
been instrumental in changing a waste and unproductive piece of land
into a scene of umbrageous and waving beauty ! Cicero speaks of tree
planting as the most delightful occupation of advanced life ; and Sir
Robert Walpole once said that among the various actions of his busy
life, none had given him so much satisfaction in the performance and
so much unsullied pleasure in the retrospect, as the planting with his
own hands many of those magnificent trees that now form the pride of
Houghton.

But I need not seek in history for testimony in behalf of tree plant-
ing, for there must be some men and women in this audience who can
testify from personal experience of the joy and benefit of planting
trees.

I appeal to those of you who have planted trees with your own
hands and watched their growth and expansion from day to day until
you have become familiar with every limb and all their varied aspects
in sunny and in stormy weather, to say whether you have not already
been paid a thousand times for setting them out. And as you now
walk beneath their cooling shade and see their limbs swaying grace-
fully over surrounding objects, and their majestic heads rising to
heaven, as if in supplication for blessings on the earth, do j'our hearts
not go out towards them with a feeling of tenderness and love known
only to a parent or a benefactor?

7th March, A. D. 1895.

ESSAY

BY

Dr. C. F. HODGE, Clark University, Worcester.

Theme : — Botanical Gardens.

In almost any language, savage or civilized, before the beginnings
of authentic history, we have dim legends and myths of a blissful
existence in garden paradises where " every tree that is pleasant to
the sight and good for food" grew of its own accord, and man's work
and pleasure was to tend the garden and enjoy its beauties and fruits.
If only things pleasing to the eye and good for food were sole occu-
pants of the soil, the world might be a good deal of a paradise still.
At first sight tliis seems to be far from the case. Thistles and thorns,
weeds and briars, dispute the field with roses and strawberries ; and,
too often, owing to man's poor tending, gain the upper hand. From
this point of view the world is :ill a tangle of thorns and a vale of
tears. Paradise is a long ways back ; lost, in fact, in the irrevok-
able past. But is this view of nature the best after all ? The world
grows many things of the greatest value with no aid of man's tending.
Even thistles and briars are better than drifting sands and barren rock :
and to the indulgent eye of a botanist, even the most pestiferous
weeds are often most "pleasing to the sight"; and I know that he
would not for the world have one of them stricken utterly from his
list. With proper tending, man's first appointed work, almost any
plot of Mother P^arth can be transformed into an Eden to any man's
own taste. As human nature is now constituted, however, two
things stand in the way of perfect attainment of anything very Edenic
in the way of gardens. The first of these is that men nowadays are
either too lazy or too busy about other things to attend to even a
small piece of ground in the way Adam was instructed to do it. The
other reason is that men have lost their taste for Eden. A good

1895.] ESSAYS. 103

smoke over a newspaper is worth more to our ordinary man than
vistas of roses with all their glowing tints and fragrance. No slur is
intended against either the cigar or the newspaper. If it is neither
of these it is something else, some "fad" which consumes time and
energy, and leaves the tending of Eden for the florist or someone else
to do. If men get more satisfaction out of something else than the
freshness and beauty of nature, with which he might easily surround
himself, well and good. "If folks like that sort of thing, why that's
the sort of thing they like"; and there's an end of it. The world
may remain a pretty scraggy and barren place, in large spots, at
least. Man has something more satisfying than anything that she can
produce without his aid, and he is too engrossed otherwise to lend a
hand. This is all very well. Each man to his taste. But there are
disagreeable complications, to say the least.

When one son of Adam has followed his bent and has tended his
garden ; when his fruits and flowers are beginning to repay him for
his labor, — the taste of some other son of Adam suffers a sudden
reversion. Nothing seems to him so fair or desirable as choice
flowers, or so luscious as grapes, pears and peaches. He comes
around suddenly to his Edenic neighbor's point of view and begins to
make his life a burden by begging and stealing, and sending his little
children around to beg and steal ; or, worse still, with five cents to
make a weak pretence 1?o buy the good things of Eden. "Just one
flower," "only one apple" ; it looks awfully stingy to refuse so inno-
cent a request. But old-time rural ideas of above-board generosity
do not apply to the conditions of life in the city. Each one person,
as he or she asks for "just one," "only a few," forgets that if all
such who would be inclined to ask for the " only one" were satisfied,
not a single one would remain for the gardener himself. His trees,
vines and bushes would be stripped as bare and barren as the gravel-
pit next to his garden, or the back yards of his worthy neighbors,
who profess to different tastes and higher satisfactions than those
afforded by legitimate horticulture. This is a matter of the most
serious imi)ort, and I have never chanced to live in a city where it
demanded more speedy and vigorous treatment. Those who love
their gardens and do all in their power to make their homes and
grounds beautiful, are rewarded for their pains by having to fight off
the gentry of other tastes ; and worse than all the material loss of time
and apples, is the dreadful strain on good nature and loss of patience
which this state of affairs entails. To be obliged to stay at home
Sundays and keep watch all other days and sit up nights in order

104 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

to stand some slight chance of gathering the fruits of intelligent cul-
ture, is more vexation of spirit than the crop is worth. Take a
single case that has come within the writer's very limited acquaint-
ance in your city. A young couple set their hearts toward the
making of a home with a garden about it. A number of years of
hard work and careful saving brings in enough to begin with. A lot
on a fair hill on the, then, outskirts of Worcester is bought and a
little house built. Not a tree or shrub graces the place, but moon-
light nights, after work in the shop, you might see our friends plant-
ing trees together. While the gentry of elevated tastes are enjoying
their cigars and beer, our young Adam and Eve have covered their
little Eden with flowers ; have planted elms and Virginia creeper ;
maples, apples, pears, peaches and grape-vines ; and all roanner of
good things. As soon, however, afe the trees begin to bear, the
reversion of primitive tastes, which so strongly tends to bring all men
back to Eden, sets in and a running fight begins. Up to the present
this struggle has been going on for something over 50 years.
Patience, strength and years have failed, while the Goths and Van-
dals have increased like the plague. Between the street and each
apple tree the well-trimmed arbor-vita? hedge, of over 40 years' growth,
has been torn into ragged and unsightly holes and has been supple-
mented by a high barbed-wire fence. Finally, apple trees, thrifty,
sound and bearing, have had to be cut down for no other reason than
to give the dear old people a little peace of their lives. The pathos
of this series of incidents is to me too deep for adequate expression,
and would be intensified in the mind of all present did each know
the couple in question. There is about them no trace of the nervous
and stingy type of character which boys love to tense. They are
whole-souled, kindly people, and generous of their good things to a
fault. Other good people, less unselfish perhaps, but wiser in their
day and generation, when I have asked them why they do not plant
fruit trees, have told me that if they had fruit, their places would be
overrun with boys, and that they had rather buy or go without than
have the nuisance of either being overrun or keeping the vandals off.
What can this have to do with botanical gardens, do you ask? It
is the very root of the whole matter. It was Adam's fault that trans-
formed Eden into a patch of thorns and thistles, and to-day it lies
solely with man to choose whether he shall live in a garden paradise
or in a desert. Before we can have gardens, we must have men and
boys, who are educated to know their value and respect their rights.
To plant gardens before this state has been in some degree attained.

1895.] ESSAYS. 105

is to bring down the fiasco of Ecleu with the certainty and promptness
with which a stone falls to the earth. And laws for proper care of
the beauties of nature should certainly be vividly enough inscribed in
the hearts of men to render superfluous the ghastly signs, " Keep
off the Grass," " No Trespassing," "Beware the Dog."

It was my privilege to visit, during the past summer, a number of
renowned gardens ; places where men have done all in their power to
provide everything that can minister to love of nature and beauty,
and to the needs of science, and special and popular education. My
purpose has been not so much to see everything contained in these
gardens as to find out what sort of ideas and ideals men have been
developing with regard to this most important subject; and, more
than this, to discover as far as possible to what degree these gardens
are fulfilling their mission of elevating taste and advancing science.
A garden, like everything else that has any legitimate purpose in the
world, must be for man and not man for a garden. If an institution,
be it church, school, garden or factory, is constituted on the stilted
ideas, false principles, or delusions of some one individual, it may
drag out a painful existence for a time and do a gfeat deal of harm ;
but all such things must die out and give way to things that fill the
genuine needs of a healthy humanity. Nature has constituted this
world a magnificent garden, with hundreds of thousands of kinds of
plants and animals in it, all living in such relations to one another
that the greatest amount of life and happiness possible is pro-
duced. Her endless variety is so skilfully massed and arranged that
individuals or species are either not conspicuous or possess some
charm and dignity. Some good man with a narrow and decided
taste lays out a garden or a park. He has a penchant for some one
tree or perhaps for yellow flowers. He indulges this yellow taste to
such an extent that people organized on a liking for other and more
subdued colors will be driven to distraction by a brief sojourn in his
garden. Or a pedantic science may dominate the arrangement of a
garden. Distinctions, of use in the science for certain purposes, but
altogether provisional, temporary and artificial, are set up as though
they actually belonged in nature. The result is a stilted, manufactured
affair, with which nature or the love of nature has nothing to do.

Speaking of botanical gardens I do not wish to confine myself
strictly to lines which an infant science has set up. It has been said
by eminent entomologists that insects have actually called into being
our highly colored and perfumed flowers. These mutual relations
between plant and insect life constitute at once the most important

106 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

and fascinating chapters of both entomology and botany. But in-
sects may beccJme so numerous as to destroy the vegetation they are
intended only to fertilize or prune. Then we must have birds and
insectivorous animals to maintain the balance of nature. These in
turn may become too numerous, like the sparrows of England, or the
frogs of the Egyptian plagues. To keep these in check, we must
have' carnivorous animals. And so we have the satisfaction of find-
ing that nature hangs together in an endless chain. Things are
simplified by studying it one link at a time, and so our sciences come
to have an artificial separateness which does not exist in nature and
which it is well sometimes to ignore. This point of view must furnish
my reasons for not adhering more strictly to the botanical feature of
my theme. You could have no ideal botanical garden with nothing
but plants in it, and many of its most interesting features will be
found to lie in the border-land of mutual relations which subsist be-
tween animals and plants.

Come with me for a moment into a garden and see for yourselves.
When we come out, we may compare observations and conclusions.

By payment of an entrance fee of a franc in the city of Antwerp,
we may pass from the narrow, dirty streets and the red, burning
desert of brick houses and peaked roofs, piled one on top another,
into what? The change is so sudden, so unexpected, that it almost
takes our breath away. It might be the gate to fairy-land, paradise,
Eden, heaven. Call it anything you please. It is known as the
Zoological Garden of Antwerp. Under the trees and roses the hot,
stifling air of the city changes as by magic to softest and freshest
air imaginable.

The iron gate, through which we have entered, opens into an ave-
nue of trees and flower beds. Along one side extends a high wall,
covered from top to bottom with dark-green ivy. On either side of
the entire walk is a row of tropical birds in the most varied and brill-
iant plumage, each lightly chained to his perch. In front, the main
garden opens up to view. Directly before us is an open grove with
an inconspicuous band pavilion in the centre and a small caf6 at one
side. All about, under arbors and trees, are innumerable plain chairs
and little tables. Beyond this grove, and scattered with apparent
carelessness about the gently undulating surface of the garden, are
other regular groups of trees. In and among them large animal-houses
are so artfully concealed as scarcely to intrude upon the view. Beauti-
ful fresh green lawns, with winding water-courses and tree-covered
islands, enlivened with swans and all manner of water-fowl. Here

1895.] ESSAYS. 107

and there a most gorgeous burst of color, cousistiug in June chiefly
of islands of roses in the dark-green foliage. In the distance, to one
side, we see a rocky eminence covered with pines ; and on the other
side, what seems to be a snow-white mountain peak, one of the high
Alps apparently, transplanted into the lowlands. We will come to
that later in our round of the garden. From a grove on the left floats
the music of innumerable birds, and from the other side, in the dis-
tance, swells the no less pleasing music of children's voices shouting
and laughing at play. All about you seems bright and airy and free.
In many directions your view wanders out into ample vistas of grove,
lawn, lake and hill. Yet with every turn of the walk you find your-
self in the coolest shade. Nothing in the whole effect has the slight-
est intimation of being set, formal, conscious, studied. Everything
seems to be purely natural, " nature unadorned, adorned the most" ;
and yet you know that nature could not possibly in so limited a space
make so many hits with never a miss. There must be magic some-
where ; and gradually the realization dawns upon us that all is purest
art so slyly concealed in nature as to nowhere appear to the eye.

We will not tarry in the animal-houses, although they contain the
finest specimens of lions, tigers and leopards to be found anywhere
short of their native haunts. The outside of the houses, however,
deserves our attention. They are built of solid stone, as if to stand
forever. Artificial, apparently natural, caves and grottoes can thus
be made in their walls, so that each animal would seem to be lying in
a den of his own selection. Almost every exposed wall is covered
with ivy or climbing roses, or concealed by trees. In architecture
many of the buildings are stamped with some characteristic of the
style of the country in which the animals are native ; and this is
helped out by frescos covering exposed walls from ground to roof,
giving you a view of a typical landscape of the region whence the
different animals come. Thus you see in the distance the sands of
the Sahara, groups of palms, the pyramids, on the horizon. You
approach, and naturally enough come upon a family of giraffes and
camels. All is thus in perfect harmony.

A feature of the labelling deserves a moment's notice. Each label
consists of a porcelain chart of both hemispheres in bold outline, with
the geographical distribution, the habitat, of each species painted upon
each and burned into the plate. It makes a label, always bright and
clean, giving at a glance the correct scientific and common name of
each species with its home on the face of the earth. Art is said to
be long. Science is even longer, if possible, and any such simple

108 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

device which can shorten and make real and vivid its necessarily long
and difficult introductory chapters is worthy of consideration.

The white peak which we saw in the distance is a model of one of
the high Alps in miniature, but quite large enough to escape being
ridiculous and to furnish bedding. ground for an interesting collection
of native alpine plants. The peak itself is built of a clean white
rock to imitate the snow ; and from all sides run little rivulets of clean
water, forming many mossy pools and pretty waterfalls.

In no place of the size can we find so many pleasing pictures. Our
view falls either upon a group of trees arranged with such consum-
mate skill as to awaken no suspicion of art, and still the different
varieties are so placed that their shades of green, silvery white or
bronze, blend and form contrasts always pleasing. P2ach group of
trees looks different and changes its entire character as you view it
from different sides. There is nothing of the formal about them ;
neither studied variety or artificial symmetry, so distressing in French
gardens and parks. If it is not one of these groves that catches the
eye, it is sure to be an open, airy vista between them, — fresh green
grass or water. Here, too, there is a refreshing absence of fussiness,
no stars in different colored coleus, no filigree in geometrical figures,
no fancy borders, no clipped hedges, no idiotic figures carved in juni-
per. We may well agree with Lord Bacon, when he says, "These things
be but toys : you may see as good sights many times, in tarts."
Green grass, water, picturesque groups of trees, need no garnishing.
The effect of these is only heightened by different colors of foliage
natural to the different species. And off to one side, against a dark
wall of ivy, a gorgeous blaze of roses may enliven the scene without
jarring upon its harmony. In fact, this perfect harmony of the whole
is strongly suggestive of music, oratorio or symphony. It stands in
marked contrast to the Annie Rooney jingles, Boulanger marches, or
even cat concerts with which we have often been greeted in public
parks and gardens elsewhere, poor hodge-podges of all manner of dis-
cordant or silly fussiness, crankism and notions, asserting themselves
so clamorously that one naturally prefers walking a good ways around
such a park to walking through it.

From the size of the trees we should judge that the designer of this
paradise must be long since gone to his rest. He must have been a
poet, artist and prophet combined. In our busy, hurried, lives we are
apt to think that anybody who may never have really looked at a tree
in his life has good enough taste to plant our trees for us, — so far apart
this way and so far apart that way, in rows and all tlie same kind.

1895.] ESSAYS. 109

The result is, that we have in fifty or one hundrefl years an effect,
pleasing more or less perhaps, possibly actually tiresome by its artifici-
ality and monotony. Nature in the same time and with the same ex-
penditure of brawn might have given us a thing of beauty and a joy
forever. The one who directed the planting of the Antwerp garden,
l)0ssibly some reverend abbot with abundant leisure, a passionate lover
of nature in general and of trees especially, and of cathedral music,
must have possessed prophetic imagination to enable him to see how
his trees would appear fifty, one hundred, two hundred years after his
planting. In a city whose cathedral chimes have been ringing the hours
and quarter-hours since prior to 1492, many such things are possible.

We next ask ourselves concerning the purposes of such a garden
and their fulfilment. It evidently serves many uses. It is a breath-
ing-space in a close and overcrowded city. It is an educational insti-
tution of the first order. Not only does it teach botany and zoology,
but it inculcates canons of the highest taste. Do many come to gain
these lessons? The grounds are full of happy looking people, whole
families, from the parents and even grandparents down to the little
children, all apparently enjoying the place immensely. An ample
corner at the rear of the garden is evidently set apart for a chil-
dren's playground, and is fitted up with a great number of swings and
whirligigs, merry-go-rounds, low trapezes and turning-poles. Here
we find hundreds, if not thousands, of little boys and girls, from about
four to ten years of age, in a perfect ectasy of play. Close by, the
laughing and screamiug is almost deafening, but every tone is happy.
There are collisions and tumbles, but the time is far too precious to
stop and cry about them.

Full of people as the garden is, I think I am correct in saying that
it is not disfigured by a single sign indicating proper conduct, and
attendants are not conspicuous. Yet not even the smallest child
evinces any desire to straggle off the walks, and there is not a tram-
pled border or corner of lawn to be found in the entire place.

Financially, too, this garden is a success. It is one of the few
institutions of the kind that is entirely self-supporting.

We are now ready to compare notes. The first question is. Should
not every city have such a garden ? At first thought, we exclaim :
" By all means." Every city would derive an infinite amount of
benefit socially, morally and intellectually from such an investment.
It is not, however, until we begin to thread the close and dirty streets
of Antwerp, see the houses built in solid blocks and piled one on the
other, see people living in the peaks of the roofs like pigeons in a

110 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

loft, see the little narrow courtyards paved with stones, that the fact
begins to dawn upon us that our first impression may be fundamen-
tally wrong. Is it not too much of a good thing in a very small
space ? And is not the rest of the city altogether too much of a bad
thing everywhere else? Given a city like Antwerp, and such a garden
as I have described would do more for the salvation of its people than
all its cathedrals. The people must use it as their only means of
getting a breath of fresh air or a glimpse of nature. On the other
hand, is it fair to ask, given a fairy garden, with the making of
which the people have had nothing to do, and might not the very fact
of its perfection tend to make the people careless of the ugliness of
their own abodes ? We are wont to congratulate ourselves that beauty
is contagious. But unless the sight of it carries with it some knowl-
edge as to how the beautiful effect is attained, and brings some im-
pulse to put forth some effort to attain it, I doubt if this be true.
Imitation and suggestion are very strong factors in the world's
progress. The quickest way to clean up a squalid neighborhood is
for some one in the middle of it to roll up his sleeves and make his
own place -hine. One after another his neighbors would catch the
infection. But if an angel from heaven should come down and plant
lilies and roses in one man's yard, the rest would fold their hands and
await their turn, if each didn't grumble because he was not served
first. Such a garden might pay expenses in Antwerp, and be a price-
less boon to its people ; but this is not saying that it would be equally
appreciated in Worcester.

Another serious objection to such a garden, ideal as it seems, is
that it is too highly spiced for every-day diet. Even lions and tigers,
elephants and monkeys, are not by any means the most important
things in the world ; neither are the most enchanting vistas. Honey,
gingerbread and pickles are all good ; but if a child gets in the habit
of living on them, he may lose his appetite for more essential food,
grow up spindling and finally die of a broken stomach. The same is
true of intellectual health and life. If interest is too much stimulated
and indulged in the rare and strange, there is danger that it be lost
for the great common things that really are most deeply and peren-
nially interesting, and that touch our lives most closely on every side.
In planning a garden, we must therefore take the above facts of
human nature, and many others, into full account. And when we do
this, we shall pro])ably all agree that we would not exchange Worces-
ter, with its garden-plats, fruit trees and lawns, for the ancient city
of Antwerp, with its narrow, dirty streets and stone-paved courts and

1895.] ESSAYS. Ill

its maguificeut garden. Possibly we might agree further, that it would
be better for the good people of Worcester to spend a good share of
their time loafing and puttering about under their oavu vines and fig
trees than in passively admiring even the best garden in the world.

Upon a still further point with reference to public gardens, I can
scarcely hope for agreement from anyone. But I have thought best
to present to you a plan of a garden as it has forced itself in my own
mind, together with some of the considerations and reasons upon
which it is based.

Besides its private gardens and public parks, every city needs a
special garden for the popular and scientific education. It should
afford a method, as easy and as free as possible from the dryness and
technicality of the books and schools, by which any intelligent man,
woman or child may gain a living, actual acquaintance with the com-
mon forms of life about them. I know a cold shudder creeps over
almost every one at the mere mention of the words " education,"
"science." Ghastly visions of the endkss weariness, the everlasting
humdrum, the unnecessary tyranny of our school and college days,
arise before us at their mere mention. The "knowledge" that was
stuffed into us, like scrap meat into a sausage skin, is gone and we are
glad for its departure. Of what value are gardens for this "educa-
tion," this " science "? To those who have never felt the difference
between learning and cramming it will be impossible to explain. To
those who have, no explanation is necessary.

It is now nearly two and a quarter centuries since John Milton
wrote his " Tractate on Education," and still the differences between
living education and dead knowledge grinding, which he so clearly
outlined, have made little enough progress in soaking through the ossi-
fied strata of the human skull. Even now committees of ten and
committees of fifteen are cracking their brains to devise crammino-
machines, and with never a thought that just such methods and de-
vices have been for centuries bursting almost all the poor, little
sausage skins and spilling all the sausage. Along this line Milton
wrote, in 1673, as follows: —

" And for the usual method of teaching the Arts, I deem it be an
old errour of Universities not yet well recovered from the Scholastick
grossness of barborous ages, that in stead of beginning with Arts most
easie,and those be such as are most obvious to the sence,they present
their young unmatriculated Novices at first comming with the most in-
tellective abstractions of Logick and Metaphysicks ; So that they hav-
ing but newly left those Grammatick flats and shallows where they

112 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

stuck unreasonably to learn a few words with lamentable construc-
tion, and now on the sudden transported under another climate to be
tossed and turmoil'd with their unballasted wits in fathomless and
unquiet deeps of coutroversie, do for the most part grow into hatred
and contempt of Learning, mocked and deluded all this while with
ragged Notions and Babblements, while they expected worthy and
delightful knowledge." These Milton gives among the reasons why
the best youth of his day turned their backs upon high attainment in
learning, and went their several ways, "• ignorantly zealous," into the
profession of theology ; avaricious and carping, for they have never
been taught " the heavenly contemplation of justice and equity," into
the law ; " hollovv and unprincipl'd " into the pursuit of politics ; or the
wisest and best of all, since nothing better was presented to them in
their education, spend their days in " ease and luxury," " feast and
jollity." " And these," he says, " are the fruits of mispending our
prime youth at the Schools and Universities as we do, either in learn-
ing meer words or such things chiefly, as were better unlearnt."

More especially toward the line of our botanical garden Milton goes
on : "I shall not detain you longer in the demonstration of what we
should not do, but strait conduct ye to a hill-side, where I will point
ye out the right path of a vertuous and noble Education ; laborious
indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of
goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of
Orpheus was not more charming. I doubt not but ye shall have more
adoe to drive our dullest and laziest youth, out stocks and stubbs
from the infinite desire of such a happy nurture, than we have now to
hale and drag our choicest and hopefullest Wits to that asinine feast
of sowthistles and brambles which is commonly set before them, as
all the food and entertainment of their tenderest and most docible age.
I call, therefore, a compleat and generous Education that which fits a
man to perform justly, skillfully and magnanimously all the offices
both private and publick of Peace and War."

War does not cut the figure it did two hundred years ago ; but, on
the other hand, the " offices of peace" have multiplied and might fur-
nish men with occupations as absorbing and interesting, if they were
educated to take hold of them. The books and schools do not afford
the kind of education that opens to men the living world, — the world
of reality ; in such wise that they see its important problems and are
given some idea of ways and means of grappling with them, and
some hope of their solution. I would have a garden designed to do
this. It would not infringe in the least upon our experiment stations ;

1895.] ESSAYS.' 113

but would supply them with youth, those whose inclinations lead them
that way, who had faced the problems as they exist in living nature,
who have formed some reasonable notion of their exteme difficulty
and who have come to an intelligent determination to solve them.
Not many would elect to follow out lines of special investigation ; but
a good square look at nature fairly in the face will benefit all, and
after taking it they must go their several ways with some respect at
least for her laws. Those artistically inclined will find and be inspired
by beauties of which they have not dreamed. The philanthropic, the
practical, the scientific, will find problems, the value of whose solution
cannot be reckoned in thousands or even in millions of dollars.

The details of a garden that shall be calculated to do this will not
detain us long. I have failed to find exactly my ideal in any of the
gardens of the Old World that I have been able to visit. Farthest
from it is the great botanical of Paris, the Jardin de Plantes. The
strictly botanical part of it is a large, rectangular field, enclosed in an
iron fence. Here a "dry as dust," artificial and superficial science
has had iron sway. The field is as flat as a table, and as rectangular.
It is laid out in rectangular walks and small rectangular beds. Each
bed is supposed to contain a single species of plant, and related spe-
cies and genera stand close together. For man, this is the easiest
possible arrangement. It is like the arrangement of cards in a card
catalogue. But not by any means is this the easiest for the plants.
Their wishes have been altogether ignored. Not one in a hundred
has the conditions under which it would best grow in nature ; and as a
result they are spindling and sickly, the great majority of them. It
is a fitting criticism upon such a superficial science, that in the midst
of a teeming city, this entire enclosure, where science has endeavored
to make all out-doors as formal and forbidding as possible, is as
empty of life as a Death Valley. It would seem that even the spar-
rows avoid it ; and for at least one fine afternoon in early September
this entire enclosure was monopolized by two lone pilgrims from
across the sea. I could not imagine anyone going in there of his own
free will and accord.

Many of the botanical gardens attached to the German universities
are vast improvements upon the Paris Jardins de Plantes from an
artistic standpoint. In general, however, the chief design in these
gardens is to serve technical and special purposes of university stu-
dents ; and the general public does not crave the admission that is
denied it.

We should not neglect to mention that nearly every German city,

114 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

and even towns, have well-kept parks ; and what is much more appre-
ciated and indulged in by the people than even the parks, large tracts
of apparently primeval forest. Aside from the well-made and grace-
fully designed walks in these forests, nature has full and absolute sway.
And no truer testimony to man's primitive love of pure nature could
be given than the solid streams of people, flowing out after the
work of the day from the sultry city into these forest walks. In our
garden we must have the natural forest.

Time fails me in which to even mention briefly the Royal Gardens
at Kew, near London, and also some gardens in our own country
that rank among the finest in the world ; notably the Missouri Botani-
cal Garden, the botanical garden at Cambridge, and others. Their
very magnificence places them beyond us ; and the enormous expense
of their maintenance, for the Missouri garden nearly $100,000 a
year, enforces a realization of the fact that a country can afford but
a few of such great institutions.

I will ask you to consider with me for a moment the charms and
advantages of an altogether different kind of garden. Suppose we
had a tract of land just as God and nature made and planted it.
Within reasonable limits, the smaller it is the better, so that it con-
tain a sample, if possible, of all the kinds of soil and slopes of
"Glade and Mead," and exposures to be found in, we will say,
Worcester County. It should have a bit of river, a pond, a bog, a
grassy meadow, hillside slopes, — north, south, east and west, — caves
and rocks and springs. It should be as near the city as possible and
readily accessible to all ; and we will suppose that it is covered with
vegetation and peo[)led with animals, fiom microscopic infusoria to
American Indians, just as it was before the Mayflower lauded. What
lessons would such a plot teach us? In the first place we would have
its geology from the Archean rocks through the Glacial drifts to the
flint arrow-heads of the Age of Man. We have also the native
animals, each in its chosen nest or pool or hole or den or covert.
These all will help to complete the endless chain of nature, animate
and inanimate, which our sciences are so prone to break into fragments,
but which must retain its entirety, if life is to survive. But passing
specially to the botanical side, what do the trees and plants teach us
as they stand in their natural places ? Each kind, from the lichen on
the rock to the pine and the oak, would tell us, did we but care to read
its story, of geological ages of unremitting struggle. And each
would tell us, did we but study its constitution aright, exactly what
weapons and cunning it has used ; just what chemical and physical

1895.] ESSAYS. 115

forces it has taken advantage of, — to maintain its struggle for life in
exactly the place we now find it. Are these lessons of no value?
We clear off this garden as if they were not. And it is only when
man plants in its place the things he desires to grow, and sees that his
peaches turn yellow, his wheat turns black, his apple trees rust and
so on ; only when the things of his planting are swept from the face
of the earth, — does man realize that it is well worth his while to study
the ways and means that nature has found necessary for the main-
tenance of her various forms. The very first thing we must realize
in this great study is that the problems are far too vast and compli-
cated for a narrow and selfish utilitarian spirit to grapple. The
commercial spirit may see that to know something about wheat- rust
may be worth $200,000,000 a year to this country, or to know some-
thing about diphtheria or consumption may save thousands of valuable
lives. What of that? it replies. We can't find out these things and we
know there is money in this thing or that which we tan do, and that is
the end of it. To deal with these problems, the broadest view that
the highest university education can give is clearly necessary to give a
sound basis for thinking out and reasoning out these problems.
They are difficult. They can not be solved at will or at dictation, in
one week or in one year. There must be a broad knowledge, and
beiiiud this a spirit entirely above the commercial ; a spirit that knows
no discouragement, in whose dictionary there are no ''can'ts"; the
spirit of the mountain climber who overcomes all difficulties, and the
harder the climb the better he likes it. When ^we have a public edu-
cation that produces such spirits, we may hope to have the question
of peach yellows and consumption and the like cleared up once for
all, instead of frantically jumping up and down in the same place
year after year.

I do not mean that it would convert AYorcester into an agricultural
or horticultural experiment station. There is no danger of that. I
would strive to so present the great facts of botany and other
natural sciences in such wise that everybody would learn and appre-
ciate the enormous value attending the solution of these problems and
gain a fair estimation of their difficulty ; and now and then some one
might step forward with the means to forward the good work or with
the knowledge, ability and will to solve some particular problem. As
one means of developing such a state of, mind, a proper educational
garden must prove most efficient.

No such primitive garden as I have described exists in this vicinity
at least. The land has been cut over and burned over and ploughed

116 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1895.

over, and uumerous new foreign species have been introduced.
Many of the fragments, however, still exist; and these might be
gathered, and so planted and arranged as to become, year after year,
of greater and greater practical value for the enjoyment and educa-
tion of the city. The trees should be planted so as to show their
characteristic forms of growth, both iu the close forest and in the
open glade ; and the garden could thus be given both the charm of the
forest and the beauty of grouping that we found in the garden of
Antwerp. Each tree, shrub and herb should be given as nearly as
possible just the sort of ground and location and surroundings that
it would choose for itself in its native haunts. Of course this would
conflict somewhat with the grouping together of related species and
genera. These should, as far as possible, be grouped naturally
together for easy comparison, and each should be plainly labelled. A
generous compromise between the demands of a rigid science and those
of art and nature Will conduce to the real good of the whole.

Does it pay to teach botany and zoology in the schools? If it
does, why either stuff it in or dole it out in desiccated book cultures
and homoeopathic doses? thereby making all who are treated immune
from botany or zoology for the rest of their lives. The real thing
taken in full strength, "straight," and plenty of it, is what we need.
Let the children live in actual botany, go on a botanical drunk, if you
please, for a week at a time. They never could altogether forget or
utterly despise their botany after even one such bout. Take the
time, when as Milton says, "In those vernal seasons of the year,
when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness
against nature not to go out, and see her riches, and partake in her
rejoicings with heaven and earth." How many days of " injury and
sullenness" can we not recall, cooped up in a dusty school-room
through the rare days of June or October.

Who should plant and care for this garden, do you ask? Under
proper direction, let the school-children themselves take a liberal share
in it. The one thousand species of plants in "Worcester County would
step into place as though the "Brownies" were at work. And you could
rest assured that no child who has put forth real effort in its behalf,
who has scoured the hills for some rare plant and set it out in the
kin( <if place he found it growing in, will ever raise his hand to
injure my specimen in the garden.

For he sake of science and general culture, I should wish to have
the native llora attended to first. After this the claims of horticul-
ture, strictly speaking, might be considered. Worcester has too

1895.] ESSAYS. 117

many others better able than myself to present her claims. Nothing
is more beautiful than trees covered with fruit. And a public
Fruticetum would be a means of exhibiting fruit at its best, and of
stimulating culture. This might be added to our garden when public
morality has reached such a point that every child over six years of
age shall be too thoroughly grounded in principle to steal, even
under severe temptation, and be imbued with too much self-respect
to beg under any circumstances.

I4th March, A. D. 1895.

ESSAY

BY

Professor E. HARLOW RUSSELL,

State Normal School, Worcester, Mass.

Theme : — Animal Intelligence.

When we apply ourselves to the study of the orders of lower auimal
life, I thiuk we are impressed with two things. First, the prodigious
number and variety of forms in which animal life is seen jipon this
earth. There is an enormous range and variety in the structure of the
auimal world. Then, again, comes the correspondingly great range of
what we may call intelligence, or something which, by a stretching of
the definition, may be termed that. It ranges from what we may call
zero, where the animal life is hardly more than that found in the vege-
table, through our domestic animals, as the cat and dog, up to the
monkey and ape, which approach most neai'ly our own structure and
our own intelligence. Then there are forms of life that have a great
amount of intelligence, only of a different variety. In this class we
include the ant, bee and wasp. I believe that it is a fact that no less
than eighty thousand kinds of beetles have been described, classified
and catalogued, and yet the insect world has not been at all
thoroughly canvassed.

In comparing the intelligence of animals and men, we cannot avoid
comparison as regards the higher animals, there are so many points
that are analogous ; and when it comes to intelligence they accord with
us in a great many respects. You well know how savages look upon
animals. In many cases they exalt them above men and maintain that
they derive their family descent from certain lines. There is undoubt-
edly a fixed belief on the part of Indians and savages that souls of
men pass and repass between animals and men as a sort of retribution
for sins committed during life.

1895.] ESSAYS. 119

Our great tendeficy is to road into the minds of animals and test
them by our own minds. And this is even so when it comes to scien-
tific men, — those who have made the subject a life-long study. There
are two great schools of naturalists, — those who believe in the intelli-
gence of animals and those who disbelieve. They are constantly and
continually charging each other with humanizing them on the one
hand and shutting it off on the other. We must have some test of
what we call animal intelligence, and without going into the thing from
a scientific standpoint I have fixed the test to be something like this :
When an animal forms within itself an immaterial representation of an
external fact and acts upon it, then I say thiat animal manifests intel-
ligence.

As an illustration of this point, allow me to tell a story that I tliiiik
will thoroughly explain my definition. An P^nglish naturalist placed a
pike, one of the most stupid of fish, in a glass tank and separated him
from a number of other smaller fishes which, if at liberty, would have
furnished him with food. No sooner had lie been placed in the tank
than he made a dive for one of the smaller fishes, but only to be
nearly stunned by swimming with such force against the glass, which
he did not discern. This continued for nearly three mouths, but at
last the pike had learned caution and did not attempt to get at the
other fish. Even when the partition was taken away, the fish showed
no desire to attack what would naturally have been his prey. That
pike did not do as he wanted to, but checked his own ijatural action by
a mental picture of what he had undergone in the past. Whenever an
animal has mental representation rather than present desire, I call the
animal intelligent.

It is hard to say where instinct leaves off and reason commences.
Instinct has certain marks and peculiarities, and it is pretty evenly
divided among animals of the same species. Intelligence on the other
hand varies considerably. Instinct is mechanical ; it works by a kind
of impulse for an end that the animal does not appear to foresee.
Reason is self-conscious. There is not the distinctness between the two
that we used to think. Instinct always has in it a little dose of reason.
Instinct is not blind, neither is it invariable. There is an abundance
of evidence to show that surroundings have much to do with instinct.

I have in a ragged sort of way said that you cannot separate in-
stinct from reason, and between them there is a constant interplay.
They are so closely connected that they breed together and the off-
spring is what we call common-sense.

yf'v,