BOSTON AND VICINITY. 79 



wherever the foot of civilization has been planted on 

 our continent. 



Some reference should also be made to the amazing 

 progress, within the age of some who still survive, of 

 agriculture, of which horticulture and rural art are 

 only parts. Nor would it be generous or truthful 

 did we fail to record the fact that much of this on- 

 ward march may be primarily traced to Boston and 

 its vicinity. And this is not the result of chance. It 

 is the natural result arising from the teachings of such 

 pioneers as I have alluded to, in the founding of insti- 

 tutions like the Massachusetts Society for Promoting 

 Agriculture, the Horticultural Society, the American 

 Pomological Society, and other kindred associations. 

 How astonishing the progress in our own day ! It is 

 not a hundred years since the first Agricultural society 

 was formed on this continent. It is little more than 

 fifty years since the first Horticultural society was 

 established in our land. Now these societies are scat- 

 tered from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Dominion 

 to the Gulf of Mexico, numbering nearly two thousand 

 kindred institutions, all actively engaged in promoting 

 the cultivation of the soil, and in the enrichment of its 

 products. 



Fifty years ago the products of our soil were scarcely 

 thought worthy of a place in the statistics of our coun- 

 try. Now our exports of these amount to nearly six 

 hundred millions of dollars annually, and our western 

 granaries are treasure houses upon which the world may 

 draw to supply deficiencies elsewhere. Then the supply 

 of fruits in our market, excepting apples, was limited 

 to a few varieties and to a few weeks of use. Now our 

 markets abound with fruits for all seasons of the year. 

 Then almost the only strawberry in our market was the 

 wild strawberrj^ of the field, and that limited to a short 



