MARSHALL PINCKNEY WILDER. 567 



the settlement of Dorchester was celebrated on the Fourth of July, 1855. 

 The oration was by Edward Everett; Mr. Wilder presided and delivered an 

 address. 



Since 1868 Mr. Wilder has been president of the New England Historic- 

 Genealogical Society, succeeding the late Governor John A. Andrew, and 

 each year he has delivered appropriate addresses. In the first one of these 

 he urged the necessity of the society having a building, and in 1870 devoted 

 three months to the soliciting of funds for that purpose, and with the money 

 (over $40,000) thus secured, the society's building, No. 18 Somerset street, 

 Boston, was procured. 



In 1850 he presided at the first public meeting called in Boston in regard 

 to the collocation of institutions on the Back Bay lands, where the edifices 

 of the Boston Society of Natural History and the Institute of Technology 

 now stand. Of the latter institution he has been vice-president, and chair- 

 man of the Society of Arts, and a director from the beginning. He was one 

 of the twelve representative men appointed to receive the Prince of Wales 

 in 1860, at the banquet given him in Boston ; also one of the commissioners 

 in behalf of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1867. In 1887 Dartmouth 

 College conferred upon him the degree of doctor of philosophy. 



But Mr. Wilder's great work was in the field of horticulture and pomol- 

 ogy, and in those pursuits he has gained the fame which is so justly due 

 him. Mr. Wilder has himself said of his work in these fields: " Endowed 

 from my youth with a love for rural life and rural taste, I have only obeyed 

 the instincts of my nature in devoting such time, ability and means as I could 

 command to the cultivation of the earth." But it was in pomology that he 

 was most successful and most widely known. His eminence in those depart- 

 ments led to an extensive correspondence at home and abroad. The pear, in 

 his orchard of 2500 trees and 800 varieties, became as noted as the camellias 

 in his conservatory. Fruit trees and fruit culture, floriculture, hybridizing 

 and a proper nomenclature in pomology received his careful and assiduous 

 attention, and these labors have been followed by the most satisfactory 

 results. Floriculture was one of Mr. Wilder's early and favorite pursuits. 

 His camellia house is supposed to have contained the best collection in the 

 country, embracing at one time more than three hundred varieties, and it 

 will now compare favorably with those at home or abroad. His later years 

 have been given almost entirely to his favorite field of work. One of the 

 most eminent agriculturists of England has spoken of him as '"'one who by 

 his zeal, industry and determination has not only conferred lasting benefits 

 on his country, but has, by careful researches in hybridization and fruit cul- 



