388 EEPORT OF THE SECRETAEY OF THE 



ent at its first meeting, and he who, by your indulgence, has 

 occupied this chair so long, will vacate their seats. Others 

 will fill the places which we now occupy ; but our Society and 

 the cause it seeks to promote will live on to bless the genera- 

 tions which shall succeed us. 



Long may the members of this Society meet together as 

 friends and mutual helpers, dispensing and receiving good, and 

 may your efforts for promoting this most beautiful of all arts, 

 this health-preserving and life-prolonging industry, be crowned 

 with continued success. May the Society go on conferring 

 blessings on our country, until every hearth-stone and fireside 

 shall be gladdened with the golden fruits of summer and 

 autumn, until thanksgiving and the perfume of the orchard 

 shall ascend together like incense from the altar of every family 

 in our broad land, and the whole world realize, as in the 

 beginning, the blissful fruition of dwelling in the " Garden of 

 the Lord." And when at last the chain of friendship which 

 has bound so many of us together in labor and in love shall be 

 broken ; when the last link shall be sundered and the fruits of 

 this world shall delight us no more ; when the culture, train- 

 ing, and sorrows of earlh shall culminate in the purity, perfec- 

 tion, and bliss of heaven, may we all sit down together at that 

 feast of immortal fruits, 



" Where life fills the wine-cup and love makes it clear, 

 Where Gilead's balm in its freshness shall flow 

 O'er the woimds which the pruning-knife gave ns below.'' 



EXCURSION TO DUTCH GAP. 



Many of the guests, accompanied by fifteen or twenty mem- 

 bers of the City Council, left the city on the steamer Palisade, 

 Captain Nelson, for a trip down the river. The steamer left 

 her wharf at Eocketts about 5 o'clock, and having on board 

 about one hundred persons, including a few ladies, she pro- 



