The future of the country depends upon the proper education of the children, and if this society can do anything to get the children interested in the cultivation of fruits or flowers or vegetables, it should do so. We are soon to leave our places here, and if the society is to prosper we must take action to interest children in horticulture, so that they may take our places when we are gone, and do better than we have done. There are many difficulties in the way, when we attempt to make our ideas practical, but still we can do something. In Hingham, where the speaker resides, the agricultural societies have a children's department, which strengthens the society and improves the children. Working on these lines, offering premiums for the best fruits, flowers and vegetables grown by children, will be a step in the right direction. Another step suggested is that since this society is affiliated with the State Board of agriculture, and whatever the board requires societies to do they must do, there being seven members of the board who are also members of the society, can they not influence the board to do something in this direction ? The board might require the societies to offer prizes for the best herbariums of ferns and grasses collected by children, and thus educate them to observe better than ever before.

Another point is that we now have a series of lectures every winter, which are listened to mostly by gray-headed persons ; might we not have one lecture especially adapted to the older children in the high school ? In Hingham notice is sent to the teachers of whatever is done by the agricultural society which will be for the benefit of children, and the result has been for the advantage of both the society and the children The same course was pursued at a recent farmers' institute at Topsfield, with promising results. The society should look into this matter carefully, and wherever it sees an opportunity to elevate the education of children it should improve it. It has already done much in shaping opinion in regard to the cultivation of flowers, especially in New England, perhaps more than we realize. That flowers are cultivated as much as they are from northern Maine to the southern boundery of Connecticut is largely due to the influence of this society. Whatever we can do to improve the cultivation of fruits, flowers and vegetables, especially among children, let us try to do it. - Edmund Hersey before Massachusetts Horticultural Society.