MARSHALL PINCKNEY WILDER. 569 



till the breaking out of the late civil war. On Mr. Wilder's retirement he 

 received the gold medal of honor and a service of silver plate. In 1867 he 

 visited Europe as a commissioner to the universal exposition in Paris. He 

 was made chairman of the committee on horticulture, and on the products 

 and cultivation of the vine. Ever since he removed to Dorchester, in 1832, 

 he has experimented largely in the growth and cultivation of the pear and 

 apple, and from his extensive nurseries the Boston and New York markets 

 were for many years supplied. The improvements that he made in produc- 

 ing choice varieties of apples and pears attracted world-wide attention. His 

 opinions and methods of culture of these fruits were eagerly sought for and 

 followed by the leading fruit growers of this country and Europe. He had 

 two libraries containing very valuable and rare works, and had been busy 

 for half a century collecting the literature of his favorite employments, as 

 well as carrying on the practical work in those fields. 



At the time of his death Mr. Wilder was president of the New England 

 Historic-Genealogical Society, the American Pomological Society and the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural Club. He was senior trustee of the Massachu- 

 setts Agricultural College and senior member of the State Board of Agricul- 

 ture and of the executive committee of the Massachusetts Horticultural 

 Society; also, senior director in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 

 the Hamilton National Bank, the New England Mutual Life Insurance 

 Company and the Home Savings Bank. He was an honorary member of the 

 Royal Historical Society of Great Britain, a corresponding member of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society of London, and the Societe Centrale d'Horti- 

 culture of France, and a fellow of the Reale Accademia Araldica Italiana of 

 Pisa. 



The above brief zecord has been taken from the columns of the Boston 

 Post. At the memorial exercises held by the Massachusetts Horticultural 

 Society Mr. W. C. Strong, chairman of the committee charged with prepar- 

 ing a fit expression of the society's regard for the late Hon. Marshall P. Wil- 

 der, reported the following memorial : 



" For fifty-six years, lacking but a single year of the entire lifetime of the 

 society, Marshall Pinckney Wilder has been a constant and an active mem- 

 ber. Indeed, we have been so accustomed to expect his benign presence at 

 all our meetings that his loss seems for the present to change the very char- 

 acter of our society. 



" 'Quorum pars magna fail ' ' With special appropriateness might he 

 have adopted these words of the Roman orator, as applied to his connection 

 with this society. It is, therefore, with no ordinary emotion that we recom- 

 mend the adoption of the following as an expression of the sentiment of the 

 society : 



" In the gift of the long and preeminently useful life of Marshall Pinck- 



73 



