10 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



I would say to you, Do what the manufacturers in this part of the 

 country are doing — making specialties in their business. In the 

 South, close to the cotton fields ; in the West, close to the sheep 

 farms, factories are being built to use the raAv material where 

 cheapest. Our factories, at a disadvantage because of the dis- 

 tance from their supplies, are making finer fabrics, in which labor is 

 the larger part of the cost, using less cotton and wool, and more 

 brains ; and this must continue as the price of their success. 



The same rule I hold to be true of horticulture ; we must seek 

 qualit}' rather than quantity. With glass and coal and skill we can 

 rival the tropics in the luxuriance of palm and fern, and set winter 

 at defiance ; but, do we do this well, that is, economically and to 

 the best result? I should have to answer. No. There are some ex- 

 ceptions, but I think the general level is not a high one. People 

 are too ambitious ; they undertake too much ; perhaps it would be 

 more accurate to say that their love of plants is too strong for their 

 judgment, and they fill a greenhouse, or plant their trees, and can 

 never afterwards make up their minds to thin out. But whatever 

 the cause, I think the fact cannot be disputed. 



The remedy is plain if we will but apply it. The sum of human 

 knowledge is growing unwieldly ; there are more books written in a 

 year than can be read in a lifetime ; the real work is done, the real 

 success attained, b}' those who give their lives to single objects. 

 And this, I think, is what we should do, whether horticulture be 

 the business of our life, or the relaxation from other pursuits — 

 choose one department of it and excel in that ; and not be con- 

 tent with anything short of the highest results that skill and energy 

 and a single-hearted devotedness to the object of our choice, 

 whatever that may be, can accomplish. 



In closing, I must refer for a moment to the friend whom I 

 succeed here, as a striking example of this principle. His life- 

 work has been a specialty pursued under difficulties that none can 

 full}' appreciate. His relaxation has been in various specialties at 

 various times. His histories will be the enduring monument of his 

 success in the former, and in the latter, we all know how easily he 

 has been first among us in whatever he has undertaken. 



Marshall P. Wilder announced the death of Professor Jared P. 

 Kirtland, LL. D., of East Rockport, Ohio, an Honorary Member 

 of this Society, at the advanced age of eighty-four years ; and said 

 that Dr. Kirtland was one of the remarkable men of our age, and 



