I 

 BOSTON AND VICINITY. 65 



collection of rhododendrons and azaleas is quite large, 

 and in the season of bloom they are displayed under a 

 tent fifty feet square, constructed for this purpose. 

 Here is a magnificent new conservatory with iron curve- 

 linear roof, sixty-five feet long, forty-two feet broad, 

 and twenty-seven feet high in the centre. This contains 

 many of the largest and most elegant plants in our 

 vicinity, especially of Camellias, Mr. Hayes having 

 secured half of the collection of the writer, some of which 

 are more than fifty years old. Mr. Hayes has a grapery, 

 a rosary, and large winter pits for the preservation of 

 half hardy plants. His exhibitions at the Horticultural 

 rooms of plants and cut flowers have carried oft a 

 large number of first class prizes as testimonials of his 

 zeal and enterprise. Nor should we omit to state that 

 this estate has been brought to its present extent by 

 the purchase of lots of which Mr. Hayes has forty-nine 

 deeds. On it he keeps eighty head of cattle and ten 

 horses, and cuts a hundred and twenty-five to a hundred 

 and fifty tons of hay annually, besides raising large 

 crops of other agricultural products. 



Here, in Lexington, were the farms and orchards of 

 Major Elias Phinney and Gen. Samuel Chandler, both 

 distinguished in the early part of this century for the 

 culture of fine fruits, especially of the apple. 



Salem should be especially remembered" in our record 

 for her interest in horticulture. Here Gov. John 

 Endicott planted a nursery, the first of which we 

 have any account in New England, a pear tree of 

 which still lives and bears fruit. His farm was known 

 as Orchard as early as 1643, and this tree stood near 

 his mansion. The Governor seems to have been 

 extensively engaged in the propagation of fruit trees, 

 for in 1644 he wrote to Gov. Winthrop, to whom 

 he was in the habit of sending trees: "I hurnblie and 



