68 HISTOKICAL SKETCH. 



by an Annual Festival and Public Exhibition of the various products of 

 Horticulture, an interest has been excited and a spirit of inf[uiry awakened, 

 auspicious to the institution, while a powerful impulse has been given to all 

 branches of rural industry, far beyond our most sanguine hopes. 



" To foster and extend a taste for the pleasant, useful and refined art 

 of Gardening, the time appears to have arrived for enlarging the sphere 

 of action, and giving the most ample development to tiie original design 

 of the Society. 



" The London, Paris, Edinburgh and Liverpool Horticultural Associa- 

 tions have each established Experimental Gardens. We must emulate the 

 meritorious examples of those renowned institutions, and be thus enabled 

 to reciprocate their favors, from like collections of useful and ornamental 

 plants. An equally enlightened taste will be thus superinduced for those 

 comforts and embellishments, and for that intellectual enjoyment which the 

 science and practice of horticulture afford. 



" With the Experimental Garden, it is recommended to unite a Rural 

 Cemetery ; for the period is not distant, when all the burial grounds within 

 the city will be closed, and others must be formed in the country — the 

 primitive and only proper location. There the dead may repose, undis- 

 turbed, through countless ages. There can be formed a pubhc place of 

 sepulture, Avhere monuments can be erected to our illustrious men, whose 

 remains, thus far, have unfortunately been consigned to obscure and iso- 

 lated tombs, instead of being collected within one common depository, 

 where their great deeds might be perpetuated, and their memories cherished 

 by succeeding generations. Though dead, they would be eternal admoni- 

 tors of the living, — teaching them the Avay which leads to national glory 

 and individual celebrity. 



" When it is perceived what laudable efforts have been made in Europe, 

 and how honorable the results, it is impossible that the citizens of the United 

 States should long linger in the rear of the general march of improvement. 

 They will hasten to present establishments and to evince a zeal for the 

 encouragement of rural economy, commensurate with the extent and 

 natural resources of the country, and the variety of its soil and climate. 



" Your Committee have not a doubt that an attempt should be made in 

 this State to rival the undertakings of other countries, in all that relates to 

 the cultivation of the soil. The intelligent, patriotic and wealthy will 

 cheerfully lend their aid, in the establishment of a Garden of Experiment, 

 and a Cemetery. Massachusetts has ever been distinguished for her public 

 and private munificence, in the endowment of colleges, academies, and 

 numerous associations for inculcating knowledge, and the advancement in 

 all branches of industry. A confident reliance is, therefore, reposed on 

 the same sources of beneficence. The Legislature will not refuse its 

 patronage, but will readily unite with the people in generous contributions 



