The Feilding Star. Thursday, October 6,1892. The Horticultural Society

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 47, 6 October 1892, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Thursday, October 6, 1892. The Horticultural Society

The annual meeting of the Horticultural Society will be held on Monday next. We hope that the business people and the residents generally i will respond cordially to the invitation given by the Secretary Mr E. Goodbehere. It cannot be denied that the interest taken by those whom we would expect to be the most actiye in promoting Shows of this kind, has flagged very considerably during the last two or three years. As a natural consequence the number of the exhibitors has gradually diminished although the quality of the several exhibits sent in does not appear to have deteriorated. Formerly our Horticultural Shows in Spring and Autumn were equal if not superior to any other on the coast, and we do not see why our ancient glories in this respect should not be again made manifest. The skill of our local producers has become greater each succeeding year, the number of acres under cultivation by gardeners has increased wonderfully, and tens of thousands of fruit and ornamental shrubs are now growing in strength in every part of this most prosperous district, which have been selected from the best nurseries in the colony. It must not be forgotten that we have a climate second to none in the world for the cultivation of fruit, flowers, grain, tubers and ail kinds of table vegetables, and therefore everything is in favor of our having really good Horticultural Shows provided always that judicious encouragement is given. In our opinion it is a mistake (or anyone to suppose that the market gardeners, florists, and orchardists are the proper persons to be most energetic in promoting these exhibition?, because in point of fact they should be the very last to take any very prominent part and as possible exhibitors they should keep themselves entirely free. We all know that in a limited community such as ours has been for some years, it has been impossible for any line to be drawn, therefore the weight of the whole responsibility has been thrust upon a committee among whom were found those who would have preferred to be exhibitors only, but without whom the Society would have fallen through altogether. Now, however, that the population has largely increased, this burden may easily be taken from them, so that they can act with perfect freedom and complete independence. If, at the meeting on Monday, a committee is elected composed entirely of business men who may, or who may not, have buc a very perfunctory knowledge of the difference between arbor culture and horticulture, so much the better for the Society, while they in their turn will be able to confer a positive benefit on the town by making the Shows of the future the success they have been in the past, and at the same time a direct and positive benefit commercially to the society as well as the district as a whole. This may appear a mercenary way of putting it, but it is plain common sense.