BOSTON AND VICINITY. 17 



hope 3*011 will continue to enjoy }'our fondness for horticulture, 

 flowers, etc., for many years. 



I remain your friend and servant, 



GEO. W. LYMAN." 



The great event in the progress of our horticulture 

 during the present century was the establishment of 

 the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1829. 

 With this there arose a new era in the science 

 of American Horticulture, that has not only extended 

 its influences all over our own continent, but has 

 reached, enriched, beautified and energized other 

 portions of the world. "Its first president was Gen. 

 Henry Alexander Scammel Dearborn, whose name 

 will ever be gratefully remembered, and to whom we 

 are more indebted than to any other man, in its early 

 history, for its prestige and popularity, both at home 

 and abroad. From its first president down to the 

 present time the Society has been fortunate in securing 

 gentlemen to fill the chair, all of whom have been 

 lovers of rural art. Dearborn, Cook, Vose, Walker, 

 Cabot, Breck, and Stickney have gone before us, 

 but, thanks to a kind Providence, Hovey, Hyde, 

 Strong, Parkman, Gray, Hayes, and the writer, are 

 still spared to labor in carrying out the beneficent 

 designs of its noble founders." But, perhaps, the 

 most beneficial act of the Society was in founding the 

 Mount Auburn Cemetery, that " Garden of Graves/' 

 where lie so many of the loved and lost ones of this 

 community, and from which the Society has received 

 already large sums of money, and is entitled to a per- 

 petual share of its income in the future. And to repeat 

 the words uttered on a former occasion : " Be it ever 



1 Mr. Wilder's Address at the Semi-Centennial Anniversary of the Massa- 

 chusetts Horticultural Society, September, 1879. 



