I04 BANQUET TO THE 



acquaintance with Colonel Wilder has taught me, lost 

 a good Councillor ; perhaps his defeat tended to give 

 to the agricultural interests a rare benefactor. 



Those who have been intimately associated wdth 

 Colonel Wilder can speak far more intelligently of 

 his great services in the department of Agriculture 

 than I can; but I can speak, and take pleasure in 

 speaking, of what he has done for so many years to 

 promote good fellowship. As the father of the Mas- 

 sachusetts Agricultural Club, at the head of whose 

 weekly gatherings he has sat for so many years, he 

 has brought together a large circle of educated and 

 practical agriculturalists ; and while the discussions at 

 those dinners would naturally be largely connected 

 with agricultural topics, yet to my mind, and I doubt 

 not in the experience of those gentlemen, a great, 

 I think I might say the greatest, benefit of the asso- 

 ciation has been in the personal friendships it has 

 cultivated. 



Comparing Colonel Wilder s achievements in the 

 fields to which he has devoted his life w^ith the rec- 

 ords of those who entered public life thirty-five years 

 ago, it is safe to say that his labors in behalf of the 

 cultivators of farm, garden, and orchard have far 

 overshadowed in their beneficent results all that has 

 been done by any score of the average politicians of 

 that day ; and that he will be freshly remembered by 

 his associates of the Agricultural Club long after the 



