BOSTON AND VICINITY. 53 



tory attached to the house, six plant houses, and six 

 fruit houses, and numerous and varied illustrations of 

 ornamental beds of flowers. The whole, for twenty- 

 seven years, has been under the charge of Mr. F. L. 

 Harris, his gardener, and constitutes a place unsur- 

 passed in this country for the acquisition of everything 

 new or old in horticulture that pleases the eye, charms 

 the senses, or gratifies the taste, affording also, with 

 the contributions and benefactions of Mr. Hunnewell 

 to the Horticultural Society, a noble illustration of his 

 love of the objects which he has sought to promote. 



Here, in Wellesley, is the Wellesley Female Col- 

 lege, founded mainly by the munificence of Henry F. 

 Durant, where is taught, as a branch of education, the 

 science of botany and the raising of plants from seeds, 

 and whose splendid avenues and ornamental grounds 

 and collection of plants are happy illustrations of mod- 

 ern progress in horticulture. 



Nor must we omit some record of the famous Ridge 

 Hill Farm of William E. Baker, containing eight hun- 

 dred and fifty acres, with its ten miles of avenues, its 

 artificial lake, one and a half miles in circumference, 

 its grotto under ground, one-fourth of a mile in length, 

 several greenhouses, numerous illustrations of the 

 artistic bedding of plants under the care of his gar- 

 dener, Mr. Greaves, and to which we may add the 

 grand hotel of two hundred and fifty rooms. 



And just across the river, opposite Mr. Hunnewell's, 

 is the fine country seat of Benjamin Pierce Cheney, 

 whose love of horticulture and the fine arts induced 

 him to place the grand statue of Ceres, which crowns 

 the temple of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. 

 Mr. Hunnewell and Mr. Charles 0. Whitmore, at the 

 same time, also presenting the statues of Flora and 

 Pomona, which adorn the corners of this building. 



