in that city, owning and doing the business of a large number of cotton and woolen 

 mills in different parts of New England. 



In this extensive mercantile house, Mr. "Wilder is one of the senior partners, 

 acquainted with all the branches of the business, and ready to cooperate with the mem- 

 bers of the firm, but of late years specially devoted to its financial department. 



He speedily took rank among the merchants of Boston, and was tendered various 

 offices in its monetary institutions. He has been a Director in the Hamilton Bank and 

 National Insurance Company for more than twenty years ; and also in the New Eng- 

 land Life Insurance Company, and other kindred institutions. The Boston Atlas, in 

 1851, says, "Mr. Wilder has for nearly thirty years been one of those 'solid men of 

 Boston' — we mean one of those enterprising, public spirited, and upright merchants, 

 whose virtues have a practical existence, benefiting and ennobling the community of 

 which they are jnembers. But though engaged in the mercantile profession, he has 

 devoted much time to the pure and elevating pursuits of horticulture and agriculture. 

 His name, as the zealous patron and promoter of the noblest of sciences, will fill a 

 luminous page in the history of human progress and improvement — a page that will 

 suffer no detriment by the lapse of years, and which will have its interpreter on every 

 hill side and in every valley where rural taste and refinement are found." 



If you would see him at his private desk, call on him at his place of business in the 

 city. If you inquire after Mr. Wilder, you will be conducted to his private counting 

 room, at one corner of which, by the window, sits the subject of our narrative. 

 Observe the books and pamphlets in his favorite departments of thought and action on 

 your left, and the files of papers on your right. Look at his desk — what a quantity 

 of letters to be read, their contents noted, and answers rendered! Read his memoran- 

 dum of business to be transacted for the day — enough, you imagine, to employ half a 

 dozen men. He is intensely occupied; but he catches the first sound of your voice, 

 and rises to greet you in as cordial a manner as if you were his familiar friend, and he 

 had been long expecting you. After mutual salutations, and when you are seated, you 

 feel as much at home as if you were in your own dwelling. If he is too intent on 

 business to devote to you the time and attention which you desire, he frankly avows 

 the fact, and asks you to postpone the subject of your interview to a specified hour. 

 At the time appointed you find that his business has been disposed of; his letters 

 answered; and that he is in readiness to resume your subject, and to devote to it 

 requisite time and attention. It relates, we will suppose, to a branch of horticulture. 

 His habit of conversation you find free and unreserved. He communicates with ease 

 and affability the results of his reading, observation, and ripe experience. 



When you have accomplished the object of your mission and taken your departure, 

 reflection suggests the inquiry how a gentleman engaged in a mercantile business so 

 extensive, can have acquired a fund of information so varied and extensive, a know- 

 ledge so profound of the sciences of horticulture, agriculture, and kindred arls. A 

 more familiar acquaintance with Mr. Wilder's natural endowments and private habits, 

 discloses the manner in which he has been enabled to make so extensive attainments, 

 and to pursue objects so various. 



sudden death of his first wife led him to seek the retirement of the countiy, 

 he could gratify his native taste for rural life. He purchased and moved into 



