44 YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 



Last evening the Temple was crowded to hear Mr. WILDER'S 

 excellent address on American Pomology a topic on which 

 no one in America can speak more understandingly than the 

 President of the National Pomological Congress. 



Mr. Wilder commenced by saying that he had accepted 

 the polite invitation of Professor Porter, at considerable incon 

 venience, for the purpose of bearing his testimony in favor of 

 the present course of lectures. Whatever might be thought 

 by profound scholars of the enterprise, he entertained no doubt 

 that the mass of our practical and intelligent citizens would 

 welcome it as the harbinger of a brighter day in the cause of 

 progressive and general education. The honor of inaugurating 

 this course belongs to gentlemen of Yale College an institu 

 tion second to no other in this land for large contributions to 

 the Republic of Letters, for discoveries in the natural sciences, 

 and for their application to the rural arts. 



Few subjects exhibit so remarkably the progress of civiliza 

 tion as the increase of fine fruits. In the progress of pomology 

 two facts are worthy of special notice : First, the rapid multi 

 plication of varieties; secondly, the high character of our 

 criterion or standard of excellence. The lecturer here gave a 

 historical account of the progress of fruit-raising, both in 

 Europe and in our own country, mentioning that the first 

 Horticultural Societies in our own land were the Pennsylva- 

 nian, and Massachusetts, in 1829, and that of New Haven, 

 in 1830. Now there are more than 1,000 agricultural and 

 horticultural societies, all laboring together, and making po 

 mology a prominent object of support. In 1817 there were no 

 nurseries of any note in New England ; now there are many. 

 Then Western New York was just beginning to be settled ; 

 now Rochester is the great pomological emporium of our 

 country, and contains the largest commercial nursery in the 

 world. It is estimated that the nurseries of Onondnga and 

 adjoining counties contain fifty millions of trees for sale. Fruit 

 was formerly a luxury ; now it is numbered among the common 



