472 Massachusetts Horticultural Society. 



tion and tact, and as it took a Leander and a J5yron to swim the Hellespont, 

 your grateful guest must leave to such eloquent orators as Speaker Winlhrop 

 on your right, and Mayor Quinaj on your left, to essay compliments worthy 

 of such a choice collection of ladies. May it not be indeed suspected, with- 

 out prejudice to those who were left at home, that every lady's escort came 

 here, like those who came with other offerings, to contend for a premium ! 

 I would that my friend Kennedy was here at my elbow to undertake what 

 would be so congenial to his taste. And yet, sir, I will venture to offer a 

 sentiment, or a thought which may have interest for you, gentlemen, in the 

 character in which we, form abroad, have the happiness to meet you at your 

 bidding — as Horticulturists, and some application it may have for you, La- 

 dies. 



The Nursery — in doors and out of doors. It is there that measures should be taken to secure 

 good fruit — both here and hereafter. 



The President said that among our guests we are also favored by the 

 presence of Mr. Downing, the author of several standard works on garden- 

 ing and the rural arts. 



A. J. Downing, Esq: Abroad, Princes honor his name by the presentation of "Golden 

 Medals " — at home, the sovereign people honor it, in many a lovly but tasteful cottage, and 

 praise it amid the quiet beauty of many a lorely landscape. 



Mr. Downing replied in a few pertinent remarks, in which he contrasted 

 the taste for Horticulture in Boston, with that in New York ; there he said 

 it was a " fitful flame, rather than a clear steady light. Our movements, 

 sometimes grand, sometimes feeble, resemble those of a child's watch, 

 whose hands go half round the dial, and then stop, as compared with the 

 regular, steady, onward motions of this Massachusetts chronometer." 



He concluded as follows : — 



I am, sir, an associationist, but it is such associations as this which I ad- 

 vocate ; associations that teach men the beauty and value of rural life ; 

 where they may sit, not only under their own vine and fig tree — but amid 

 their own blossoming, fruitful orchards and gardens ; homes created by 

 their own industry — embellished by their own taste — endeared to them by 

 simple pleasures shared with their own families. This, Mr. President, is 

 the true ideal of Horticulture ; this is the good work which it promises to 

 accomplish, and which, more than any other pursuit, any other art, any 

 other recreation, it does accomplish, that of bringing men into daily contact 

 with nature — of giving them pure, simple, rational pleasures; and, most 

 of all, of teaching them to find happiness, not, in the excitement of politics, 

 not in the busy tumult of life; but in their country and cottage homes — 

 there to understand and realize the truth of that fine saying of Burns, 



" To make a happy iire-side clime 



For weans and wife, 

 That's the true pathos, and sublime. 



Of human ' life.' " 



The delegation from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the oldest 

 in the United States, and between which, and our own Society, exist the 

 most friendly relations, was then called on : — 



