HON. MARSHALL P. WILDER. n 



At the conclusion of the dinner, the President, the Hon. 

 Mr. Breck, spoke as follows : — 



Gentlemen, — The occasion which brings us to- 

 gether this evening is of great interest to us all. We 

 come here to offer our congratulations to, and to 

 express the sentiments of love and admiration which 

 we feel for, the oldest merchant of the city of Boston, 

 on this the eighty-fifth anniversary of his birth. For 

 more than fifty years he has been a director in the 

 Hamilton Bank, and for forty years a director in 

 the New England Life Insurance Company. He is 

 the father of the Massachusetts Agricultural College 

 and of the State Board of Agriculture. He was the 

 founder and President of the United States Agricul- 

 tural Society. His influence has been felt through- 

 out the country. For a third of a century he has 

 held the important office of President of the American 

 Pomological Society, whose members are found in 

 every State of the Union, and also in the Dominion 

 of Canada. He was one of the founders of the Massa- 

 chusetts Institute of Technology, was for many years 

 a vice-president, and the chairman of its Society of 

 Arts. From its organization he has been a director. 

 He is President of the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 Club, now in the forty-fourth year of its existence. For 



